Exploring Your Learning Style

If you’re new to homeschooling or just thinking about it, the journey out of institutionalized education takes time to adjust from. Homeschooling is not like formal compulsory education. In the home, your child has more one on one time (even if you have a few children) than he had in the schoolroom with up to twenty-five other children. The expectation to have forty-five to fifty-five minutes of ‘class’ time may not be necessary in home education.

As a parent who grew up in public school, had her children in private school, then ventured into home education, it took us a while to adjust to a new style of educational philosophy. Here’s the bottom line, no two homeschools have the same exact philosophy. There is no cookie cutter approach. Each family needs time to figure out what kind of philosophy they will incorporate.

I personally feel that it takes some time not only for the parent, but also the child, to understand this new direction. Many home educating families offer different advice about this and you’re the only one who can ultimately decide what is best for your family. I encourage you to take your time. There is no rush to education and if you rush in this new direction, you may fizzle out before you really get started. Here are just a few tips that helped us when we decided to home educate:

• Find out what your child’s learning style is. There are websites with information on this and books from your local library. Each child may have their own learning style and once you know how they learn best, you can begin to design your home education philosophy.

• Allow your children to be involved in some of the decisions about their education. This will help them understand the transition and they may have some feedback to help all of you. Learning should be a lifelong lifestyle and when you give them the opportunity to explore this direction you’re taking, it gives them the inspiration to become adventurous with their learning.

• Take your time, there’s no rush. Let this be part of their education. When children investigate their own learning style and help develop their educational approach you begin a spark that can set them ablaze with a motivation to learn and launch them in a direction of success to keep their momentum going.

• Stay positive and show intrigue and excitement. With each component of this journey, keep them searching within themselves and draw out their natural gifts. Be excited with them and praise them for each discovery they make about their learning style.

• If something seems to be a disability, turn it around and find the gift within it. This will help them develop a habit of positive thinking necessary for success. Anytime they feel they’ve hit a brick wall, think creatively. If you focus on the negative, you’ll see it staring right back at you, but look for the positive and you may discover something you have never seen before that could very well alter their thinking, for the better, for the rest of their lives.

Overall, just keep exploring right along with them. Our home education adventure has had it’s fair share of mistakes along the way, but we learn from each situation.