Homeschooling Your Child After School

In my previous articles on thinking like a homeschooler, I discussed how homeschool methods could be used to make your child successful in public school. From taking charge and responsibility of your child's education, to making them naturally curious learners, it is homeschooling methods can greatly improve the value of your child's education. If you are truly thinking like a homeschooler, you will also want to actually spend time instructing your child.

The first thing you will need to do is find the time to instruct your child. Chances are, if your child is in public school, that you probably are also busy during the day, at work, with the business of raising a family and running a house. Still, it is important to spend face to face instruction time with your child, whether they already go to public school or not.

President Barack Obama often mentions that his mother used to wake him up early in the morning for instruction that he was not getting in school because they lived abroad. This is the point of spending extra time teaching your public school children. Whether your kids go to a good school or not, there is surely information they are not getting in school that you would like them to have. Be it cultural, academic, physical, or personal, it it a parents responsibility to ensure that their child is well educated; not the school's. You can work with what the school has to offer, however, you must supplement what is missing.

Next, you must decide what it is you need to teach your child. In the case of Obama's mother, she knew that he was not being given proper American English instruction. The deficit was obvious. For the rest of us, it is not so easy to decide what lessons the child should be taught. You may want to pick an area where the child is not doing well in school and supplement. You may want to add music or art education. You may want to work on your child's physical fitness. Decide what is important to you for your child to learn, and teach them on your own. Don't wait for permission from the school to teach your child. You will never get it.

Once you have carved out a time period in which to teach your child, and you know what you want to teach, you will need to determine your methods. Consider and early morning walk and talk if your lessons will be cultural. Academic work can be done over breakfast using workbooks and educational videos that you can purchase. Educational video games can be used after school for the child to unwind while learning. Piano or violin instruction can be done after dinner with the parent or a private instructor. To learn all of the creative ways in which you can teach your public school student, it would be valuable for your to read a homeschooling book such as The Ultimate Book of Homeschooling.