8 Disadvantages of Homeschooling
Drawbacks or disadvantages of homeschooling: socialization limits, potential knowledge gaps, and challenges in maintaining structured learning environments.
What is homeschooling?
The idea of homeschooling or home education is about study at home or any place other than an institution. Homeschooling is an ideal choice for those parents who have some kind of ideological concerns. Students with some behavioral or medical issues can easily adapt to homeschooling.
Homeschooling has its pros and cons. Though it has some disadvantages and drawbacks but if the traditional school system is not helping then it can be a worth choosing option.
But, in 2022, from April to May, 77 % of children have been shifted towards homeschooling but only 50% were satisfied with the progress of homeschooling. No doubt, along with merits, it has some disadvantages also which are being discussed in detail.
Disadvantages of Homeschooling
Here are 8 disadvantages of homeschooling:
- The lack of socializing activities is the biggest drawback of homeschooling.
- Time management is difficult for homeschooling children and parents.
- Dealing with frustration is not easy for parents of homeschooling children.
- Parents have to face financial burdens.
- A disciplined life is needed in homeschooling.
- Lack of facilities affects the progress of homeschooling students.
- Many of the big events are missed.
- Parents should prepare themselves for criticism.
One by one, let us understand the disadvantages of homeschooling.
The lack of socialization is the biggest drawback
One of the biggest disadvantages of homeschooling is the lack of exposure to different types of people, cultures, opinions and beliefs. Homeschooling children may have desirable outcomes in studies, but sometimes “moral growth” does not happen which is quite essential in dealing with people.
In traditional schools, students come from different backgrounds and possess different opinions about things and thus by meeting with them, a child can go through different beliefs and ideologies. A sense of isolation is also found in homeschooling children. Such children may face difficulties in talking with people.
Time management- a challenging task
Time management is the biggest challenge for homeschooling children.
In traditional schools, whether students like it or not, they have to follow the timetable routine whereas, in homeschooling, a lot of research is needed to set the schedule and curriculum structure.
Along with academic structure, parents have to set timetable for playing. Finding playmates for children is quite a hard task.
Dealing with frustration is difficult
Plenty of time is needed to understand the diverse topics. Usually, parents do not have a proper command of teaching skills and they are unable to convey knowledge properly. The end result may be confusion and frustration.
So, be calm when your child is not understanding the topic. Specially, it is difficult to remain patient when the child is misbehaving.
Parents have to face financial burdens
Public schools provide all the essential material to excel in their study. Contrary to this, all the resources such as books, or teachers’ opinions are not accessible for homeschooling students.
- Usually, the extracurricular activities held by traditional schools are free. Along with this, sports teachers, uniform for sports, and tickets are also free of cost. whereas in homeschooling you have to pay from your pocket.
- Lastly, when the students of the traditional school are graduating many of the experienced teachers become a helping hand to guide them for future but in homeschooling, you have to pay the fee for the counselor.
A disciplined life is needed
Normally, parents are less strict than teachers. To deal with distractions, for captivating outcomes, is required, which is quite an impossible task without strictness.
Mobile phones and TV are the biggest distractions and if they are not well-managed and they will certainly reduce outcomes. How can you concentrate fully when the TV is only a few steps ahead? so, to deal with all these distractions, a disciplined life is needed.
Lack of facilities affects the homeschooling
Mostly the public schools are rich in facilities. For instance, the chemistry or physics labs, which are provided to students are free. To have apparatus of such labs at home is a tough job.
The sports facilities such as running tracks, and theater are not available at home. When the students are exposed to sports, they may find out the hidden passion of sports.
Many of the big events are missing
The absence of changes in daily routine is one of the disadvantages of homeschooling that can have a drastic impact on mental health. Excitement or nervousness before presentation, critical moments during the presentation of a task, discussion it with friends are all missing things in the life of a homeschooling child.
The homeschooling students are at a disadvantage because there are no exciting events that are usually present in the life of students learning from traditional schools such as welcome or farewell parties, get together, and trips.
Parents should prepare themselves for criticism
Parents, along with their children, have to answer this frequently asked question, “Why do they choose to homeschool over traditional schooling?”
When something happens that differs from norms of society, people will certainly pass their judgment on it. So, facing criticism is a challenge among 8 disadvantages of homeschooling when you are adopting this phenomenon.
Disadvantages of homeschooling- in a nutshell
The points discussed above regarding the topic of disadvantages of homeschooling have demonstrated clearly that your child can miss so many social and interpersonal skills during homeschooling. The parents offering homeschooling to children should try to first understand the challenges and then find their effective and sensible solution. In this way, you can enjoy effective and stress-free parenting.
Written by: Rida Fatima
Editor in Chief: Prof Ajmal Dass Jaipal
