Why Homeschool?
The first step to homeschooling is making your decision to home educate your child. It is important to become informed and knowledgeable about some of the main concerns you may have. Explore these areas of our website to learn more about the initial decision to homeschool.
Making Your Decision
The reasons people decide to educate their children at home are varied and can be unique to each family. Some look towards a better educational experience, others are concerned with moral and social issues, some are concerned with safety, and still others have special needs that they wish to address. Explore these reasons and others that have led families to homeschooling.
Advantages
Ask anyone who loves homeschooling what the advantages are, and you'll probably hear a long list of the benefits of educating children in the home. Homeschooling is a journey and an adventure, with benefits and rewards for the entire family. Come find out what these advantages are and decide if homeschooling is right for you.
Teaching Your Own
Are you qualified to teach your own children? The answer is yes! It is challenging, but rewarding, to educate your children in your home. Find out what these challenges are and how to address them.
Socialization
"But what about socialization?" So the typical question goes to anyone who homeschools. Find out what socialization means to homeschooling families and strategies to engage your children and your entire family in social activities and connections.
Research & Statistics
Learn about current research and statistics involving homeschooling families, the homeschool movement, and the educational system.
Public School Issues
Many parents are basing part of their decision to homeschool on issues with public schooling, from bullying to poor academic performance to problems with governmental control.
Community Outreach
Want to help homeschooling integrate into the community at large? Are you a homeschool group leader who talks with the media or provides information to new and curious homeschoolers? Here are tips to help you present homeschooling to the public and the media.
What's Popular
How Do I know If I'm Qualified to Homeschool?
Parents considering homeschooling are understandably concerned about whether they are qualified enough. Do parents need to be trained and certified like public school teachers? How in the world can you be qualified to teach them? The most important thing to realize is that as a homeschooling parent, you're job is not necessarily to teach your children. Instead, you are there to help them learn. 
Product Reviews on Homeschool Blogs: How to Get Them
How to get bloggers interested in your products so that they will write product reviews on their homeschool blogs -- have an outstanding product first of all and give bloggers incentives. Find social media savvy homeschool bloggers on Twitter and G+ using two special hashtags.
It's a Myth That School is Good for Socialization
Parents who have their kids in school often say they have them there because of socialization. It's absurd that homeschoolers talk to people of all ages, all day long, and kids in school have to listen to a teacher all day long. It's just not even a contest: homeschooling is better for socialization because parents value it so much and schools don't.
Making the Transition from Parent to Homeschool Teacher
Parents often tell me, "I'd love to homeschool my kids, but I don't think I'm qualified." Other parents are intrigued by homeschooling, but couldn't possibly imagine themselves as both parent and teacher. Is it possible for average parents to take on the enormous job of educating their children? Aren't years of specialized training required to become a good teacher? The answer to both of these questions is "yes." How is that possible? Because learning at home is very different from learning in a...
How to Respond to Haters When You've Decided to Homeschool
If you’ve made the decision to homeschool your children, more than likely, you’ve met resistance from almost everyone who knows and loves you and your children. These lighthearted examples can help you respond. 
Why do some people choose to homeschool their kids?
More and more American parents are choosing to educate their children at home. What accounts for this trend? Reasons include faith preferences, the individual approach to education, and a desire for a stronger family unit. 
Homeschool Tall Tale: Parents Are Not Qualified to Teach Their Own Children
As concerned parents, we are totally qualified to teach our children. No one knows your child like you do. Your job is not to teach them everything there is to learn. Your job is to teach them how to learn, how to study, how to investigate and help them develop the love of learning. There is no greater job on earth. Is it hard? Sometimes. Is it worth it? You betcha!
Socializing the Sanguine Child
Dianna Kennedy shares the socialization adventures of her sanguine daughter. There are so many ways to get out and enjoy others and the world. 
10 Honest Reasons Parents Choose to Homeschool and the Politically Correct Defense We Hide Behind
There are so many reasons to homeschool. Is everyone's reason different or are there common reasons we homeschool? While there are lots of answers to smooth over any uncomfortable probing questions from strangers and sometimes family, these reasons are honest reflections of the choices of homeschooling family. 
1.1 Million Homeschooled Students in the United States in 2003
This brief uses data from the 2003 National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) to estimate the number of homeschooled students in the United States in 2003 and to discuss the reasons parents decide to homeschool their children. The brief also shows that the number of homeschoolers, and the proportion of the student population they represent, has increased since 1999.
What About Socialization?
If only homeschoolers had a nickel for every time they heard the question, "... but what about socialization?" That infamous socialization question, for any seasoned homeschooler, is quite a humorous one! Although non-homeschoolers worry that homeschooling may turn children into social misfits, we know that the opposite is true and that positive socialization is one of the best reasons to homeschool your children.
Students Against Testing
This website offers an alternative look at standardized testing. Students Against Testing was created to be a strong force against the score-obsessed education machine known as standardized testing. At the same time, SAT also exists as an advocate for bringing positive, creative and real-life learning activities into the schools.
Why Are Homeschooled Kids So Annoying?
The biggest concern among the concerned is socialization. In other words: homeschooled kids are annoying and weird, and you don't want your kids to be annoying and weird, do you? Well, why are homeschooled kids so annoying? Because no one tells them that the way God made them isn't cool enough.
Socialization is a Bunch of Malarkey
Most folks who ask about socialization mean well. They are not plotting against us, but they are uninformed. But modern socialization in schools is not natural or desired. The best response is one that offers a gentle attempt to enlighten questioners about the wonderful world of homeschooling. 
Why Homeschooling is Great for Socialization
Homeschooling offers many social benefits, including exposure to a wide range of people, more time spent with adults, avoidance of bullies, and an opportunity to encounter real-life situations. If you're considering homeschooling, don't let the myths about socialization hold you back. It really is a great way to grow up. 
Resources
Homeschool Bravely: How to Squash Doubt, Trust God, and Teach Your Child with Confidence

It's time to change your perspective to transform the way you plan, teach, and homeschool. This book helps you to see homeschooling as a calling. With this mindset, you'll be able to dismiss the stress of impossible expectations. Find strategies to help you juggle the logistics of homeschooling with different ages, be a good support for a struggling learner, set realistic goals, dismiss the guilt, and weather any criticism. You can be a hopeful homeschooler! God uses all for good and can transform all of your stress, fears, shortcomings, and successes to create the best plans for your family. 

The Homeschooling Revolution
A readable, scholarly overview of the modern day homeschooling movement. Includes vignettes from homeschooling families, war stories, research information, media reaction, footnotes, and statistics.
But What About Socialization? Answering the Perpetual Home Schooling Question: A Review of the Literature
This book by Dr. Susan A. McDowell  uses research, statistics, and the experiences of homeschooling families to answer questions and counter myths about homeschooling and socialization. Read through a discussion of the multiple meanings of socialization, what parents, leaders, and children have to say about the issue, and what the research shows. 
Should I Home School?: How to Decide What's Right for You & Your Child

Have questions about homeschooling? This book has the answers. The information in this book will help you decide if homeschooling is right for you and your child. 

Kingdom of Children : Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling Movement (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology)

More than one million American children are schooled by their parents. As their ranks grow, home schoolers are making headlines by winning national spelling bees and excelling at elite universities. The few studies conducted suggest that homeschooled children are academically successful and remarkably well socialized. Yet we still know little about this alternative to one of society's most fundamental institutions. Beyond a vague notion of children reading around the kitchen table, we don't know what home schooling looks like from the inside.

Sociologist Mitchell Stevens goes behind the scenes of the homeschool movement and into the homes and meetings of home schoolers. What he finds are two very different kinds of home education--one rooted in the liberal alternative school movement of the 1960s and 1970s and one stemming from the Christian day school movement of the same era. Stevens explains how this dual history shapes the meaning and practice of home schooling today. In the process, he introduces us to an unlikely mix of parents (including fundamentalist Protestants, pagans, naturalists, and educational radicals) and notes the core values on which they agree: the sanctity of childhood and the primacy of family in the face of a highly competitive, bureaucratized society.

Kingdom of Children aptly places home schoolers within longer traditions of American social activism. It reveals that home schooling is not a random collection of individuals but an elaborate social movement with its own celebrities, networks, and characteristic lifeways. Stevens shows how home schoolers have built their philosophical and religious convictions into the practical structure of the cause, and documents the political consequences of their success at doing so.

Ultimately, the history of home schooling serves as a parable about the organizational strategies of the progressive left and the religious right since the 1960s.Kingdom of Children shows what happens when progressive ideals meet conventional politics, demonstrates the extraordinary political capacity of conservative Protestantism, and explains the subtle ways in which cultural sensibility shapes social movement outcomes more generally.

Taking Charge of Your Child's Education: A Guide to Becoming the Primary Influence in Your Child's Life

Every parent wants to give their child the best start in life. The best way to do that is to get fully involved in their educational process as their primary influence. This book is full of helpful information, resources, and tools that will lead you to home education success. Erica Arndt recognizes that the most important factor is the family unit relationships. This book will help you as you make your decision to homeschool. 

Why We Homeschool

It is a common misconception that most parents homeschool due to bullies, school shootings, or bad teaching content. While these things are important, there is a higher purpose for choosing to home education your children. Even if all those things were corrected, there are stronger reasons to stay committed to the homeschool model. So why do you homeschool? This book looks at the meaning and significance of a true Christian education. 

They're Your Kids: An Inspirational Journey from Self-Doubter to Home School Advocate

For many people, their schooling was uncomfortable, tedious, and sometimes a waste of time and energy. This book offers the idea that the public school system is tragically flawed and that we are able to do better for our own children. Sam Sorbo, mom of three and wife of actor Kevin Sorbo, took the leap into homeschooling and found the joy and success she was seeking. Included are strategies for working parents, those who are scared to take the leap, and anyone who wants the best for their children. 

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
This radical treatise on public education has been a New Society Publishers' bestseller for 10 years! Thirty years of award-winning teaching in New York City's public schools led John Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory governmental schooling does little but teach young people to follow orders as cogs in the industrial machine. In celebration of the ten-year anniversary of Dumbing Us Down and to keep this classic current, we are renewing the cover art, adding new material about John and the impact of the book, and a new Foreword.
A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling
In 1991, shortly after receiving both the New York State and New York City Teacher of the Year Awards, John Gatto resigned to begin a new career as an education reform advocate. In this collection of 16 essays, Gatto analyzes the problems of American education and suggests solutions for revitalizing the system — prescriptions that run counter to current trends.
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Featured Resources

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Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual Spatial Learner
Dr. Linda Silverman coined the term "visual-spatial learner" to describe the special and unique gifts of people who learn best through seeing and with images. This guide is a great resource as you support your homeschooling visual learner in discover...
Choosing & Using Curriculum: For Your Special Child
Homeschooling a child with special needs can be challenging. This book lays out a discussion of different reading and math programs, how to adapt materials for special situations, resources for blind, deaf and speech/language, and curriculum types an...
America's National Parks for Dummies, Second Edition
What makes a trip to a national park so wonderful? For starters, America's national park system is more diverse than any park system in the world. You can stroll the seashore at Olympic National Park in Washington or Cape Cod National Seashore in Mas...
Classical Education & The Home School
Classical education is an idea whose time has come again. When parents see the failures of modern education, they look for better solutions and classical education is one that has been tested in the past and found to be good. For the Christian home e...
Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work
Maria Montessori is important background reading for parents considering Montessori education for their children, as well as for those training to become Montessori teachers. The first woman to win a degree as a Doctor of Medicine in Italy in 1896, M...