In today's social environment parents are opting to enroll their children in home school programs rather than keeping them involved with both public or private educational programs. Both parents and children are seeing a great deal more benefits than hindrance in the homeschool programs. Prior to making that choice, there are specific issues you should know about, which will be covered here.
The teacher to student ratio in many classes is 30 to 1, which motivates many parents to take their kids out of school. The more people per capita, the higher the ratio. Any child that needs extra help will not get it in these types of classrooms because the teacher cannot focus on one child at a time. Teachers that are placed in large groups like this will be unable to help students that need individualized help making it rough on both the teacher and the students at the same time. Kids that do homeschooling often get the help needed from their parents because it is sometimes an one-on-one situation. Kids can get help right away when they need it because you have the extra time to spend with them. It is simple to help your kid and move on. This ability to address problems right away is something you simply cannot do through public education.
You don't have to be a genius or scholar to teach your kids, but you do have to know something about the topics you'll be teaching them. However, you will have to brush up on your skills and study a little bit yourself. If there are a lot of subjects that you don't know very well, read ahead at least a chapter in advance so that you can be ready for the next day. Parents that do this for the first time may find that they are not very competent with some subject matter which may require them to hire a tutor to help their child learn what they need to know.
Remember, you are going to be your child's tutor which requires you to do some homework on your own so that you're competent when you teach.
Teaching is a very challenging profession, but it can be even more so if you are the teacher of your own child. You need to consider the fact that you will be one-on-one with your child five days a week and then on the weekend. Can you do this? Things that the public school teacher used to do such as motivate your child to turn in their homework is now your job full-time. When you do homeschooling, you will have to role-play in several different positions including teacher and parent. Parents must act as motivators, getting their children to apply themselves in the right way, including doing their homework and lessons in class. This is not a position that everyone can fill, so you need to think about it seriously before you commit yourself to homeschooling. Even though home schooling is a lot more widespread now than even a few years ago, it's still considered unusual by most people. Outside of making sure that your kids get enough social contact with other school children, home schooling is definitely an alternative that you should look into. Just understand that you have to do some research prior to jumping in to the homeschooling arena.