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We are all very different. Every home is different and each child is different from any other child. When parents teach their children at home, they are given the opportunity of educating and shaping each child according to his specific needs and characteristics. God has given parents the awesome privilege of contributing to the formation of each one of their children’s character and personality. What a challenge! |
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When children home school, parents are able to enjoy the success of what their children have learned in each subject. More important, however, is that in each subject that their children study, parents can help and guide them, so that together they can discover the works of God and His will for their lives. |
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Home schooling allows parents to selectively choose their children’s friends; friends who will not be a negative influence. A man once heard his pastor comment on how children begin to kill each other emotionally and spiritually from the time they start school, since they are often cruel, by calling each other names and making fun of their classmates. That man confirmed the declaration of his pastor, saying, “… I still remember how my classmates killed me – all because I was shy and younger than the rest of the students in my class. They made me a very lonely child.” Name-calling and teasing are bad habits that cause permanent emotional and spiritual wounds. |
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When children are able to study in the safety and comfort of their own home, they develop more confidence and a deeper trust that their beliefs come from God. They also develop a capacity to live by their own convictions and the ability to think more independently due to being kept away from the peer pressure to conform to this world. |
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Children learn to respect and appreciate their parents as teachers. If a child spends many hours each day receiving instruction from an adult, he or she will grow to trust almost everything that adult teaches and expresses. That adult should be the child’s parent – not an unknown teacher, much less an atheist or worldly person. Sadly enough, many parents have discovered too late that they were not able to erase the negative spiritual influences that other teachers have left in the lives of their children. |
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Family values are instilled – such as solidarity and appreciation for being able to spend time together and work as a family. |
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Parents do not have to plan their vacations based on a school calendar. Children have the freedom to travel with them at any time of the year. Also, if so desired, the whole family can travel with dad on his business trips. |
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Classification by age is avoided. When children only relate to people of their same age, their priority will always be to please their classmates – even if it means disobeying their parents. |
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Children should not have to carry burdens that God never meant for them to carry. God wants children to have time to be children. Many children never have that opportunity because they spend six to eight hours in school, only to come home to spend more hours doing homework. It is a well-documented fact that home-schooled children can receive a far better education and spend less time studying each day than children who attend a traditional school. There are many reasons for this; one being that much time is wasted in traditional schools. Home-schooled children have more time in their lives to enjoy doing other activities. |
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Each child can move at his or her own pace. They can either move onward without having to wait for other children who might be slower at learning, or they can work slower without suffering learning gaps because the other children have already learned the material, and the teacher must move on. Some secular historians claim that the two men who changed history the most were Jesus Christ and Thomas Alva Edison. We know that Christ did not merely change history. He revolutionized it! But what about Edison? He received over 1,100 patents for everything from the light bulb, electric power plants and motors to the transmission lines and transformers needed to wire the world and operate his many inventions. He founded what continues to be the largest company on earth – General Electric. It is a good thing that Edison’s mother was willing to home school him, because his public school teacher thought that he was simply too slow to keep up with his class, so she refused to allow him to continue his studies at school! His mother then home schooled him from the third grade onward. Edison is one of many examples of the excellent fruit that home schooling produces! |
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Since this is a truly personalized education, parents can spend more time reviewing any area of study where the child has a weakness. |
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Younger children learn faster when they are in the company of their older brothers and sisters. When they are exposed to concepts that their older siblings are studying, they have a more rapid intellectual development. |
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Many who home school save time and money because they do not have to make trips back and forth from schools in their car, nor do they have to buy uniforms, or materials or pay for extracurricular activities. |
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Another important advantage is the child’s physical health. We all know that contagious diseases are very easily spread in educational institutions. When children are home schooled, their chances of being contaminated are greatly reduced. |