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Homeschooling is not for everyone but many parents should consider the benefits - financial and personal - that homeschooling can provide.

You'll save on kids clothes - you save money by not having to buy "back to school" clothes. Your kids can learn in their pajamas or casual clothes.

You'll save on transportation costs. Not every community has school buses. If you drive your children to school every morning, think of the gas money you'll save over the course of a week. This may be offset somewhat by trips to the library, but these won't be everyday trips, so you still save.

Are you wary of the influences other kids will have on your child? You should be. Most kids WANT to learn, until they're taught by the cool kids in their peer group that learning or knowledge is 'so uncool'. Homeschooling eliminates this peer group pressure. It allows your kids to develop emotionally in an unthreatening environment until they're eventually emotionally mature enough to resist peer group pressure

Unfortunately, many schools today are nothing more than glorified baby-sitting centers. That's fine if you're just looking for an excuse to get your kids out of the house. But if you're looking for your child to get real learning, many schools fail miserably.

As far as personal benefits, homeschooling will keep you emotionally close to your children. It'll give you more time to impart your personal values to them, to teach them right and wrong, to teach them the values that you want them to grow up with, values that will help them in later life.

Also, many studies show homeschooled children to be academically ahead of similar children at their age level. Why is this? It's primarily because in most cases you will care more about your child than a teacher will. You will be able to teach your child one-on-one, as opposed to him or her being one of 35 to 40 kids.

Individual instruction works demonstrably better than group instruction. This is true even if you only have a high school education. In most instance, it's not the number of degrees a teacher has that makes her a good teacher, it's how mush she cares about the children that she teaches. Just think back to your favorite teachers in grade school and high school and you'll know exactly what I mean.

It's important to remember that making the decision to homeschool doesn't mean that you are forever locked into that decision. Maybe you'll only homeschool until grade 3. Maybe you'll START homeschool at grade 3. Maybe you'll be guided by what your child wants to do - regular school or homeschooling. In any case, the most important thing to remember is that you have choices and that your choices are not cast in stone.