Advice for Homeschooling Dads

Homeschooling is a lifestyle decision, which gives it a lot of advantages over traditional schooling. Parents make an effort to have their family life be inclusive rather than exclusive of school and have the opportunities to incorporate daily living activities into their curriculum. This gives everyone in the family a chance to participate in the process.

However, by its very nature homeschooling usually necessitates having a part-time or full-time instructor in the home, which often means that one parent becomes responsible for the homeschooling management. For many families this requires some financial adjustment and the parent with the higher salary continues to work to support the family, which often times leads to fathers in the work place and mothers taking on the homeschooling duties.

Recently a lot of research and information has been generated in the public education system about the importance of the role of fathers in their children's education.

According to the data, children whose fathers take a more active role in their education do better in school. The reports also describe how fathers can be involved in several ways with their traditionally-schooled children: through activities outside of the school, by attending school-based activities, and by being active in the community. But what does this mean for homeschooling fathers?

Many of these same ideas can be applied to homeschooling families since fathers of homeschoolers can also be involved on many levels. Fathers can participate outside of the daily instructional setting in activities that can also help their children to succeed.

1) For example, fathers can set aside time to read with their children. Research has shown that parents who model reading help generate an interest in reading in their children and motivated readers are better readers. By reading with their children, fathers can reinforce good habits and help identify problem areas that can be worked on during the school day.

2) Since most fathers arrive home in the early evening, they can also help to establish a daily routine for homework, chores, and bedtime preparation. This provides the family with organization that will allow for more family time as well as giving fathers their own time with the children.

3) By having fathers help with homework the mother is free to focus on other areas and to have a break from schooling. In addition, fathers may be able to bring additional knowledge or expertise in particular subject areas and may go as far as teaching some or all of the lessons in those subjects.

4) Besides evenings, homeschooling allows for integrated lessons, which means that family events such as museum trips can be used to fulfill the requirements of a homeschooling curriculum. Fathers can participate with their children in activities they both enjoy such as sports and extra curricular activities on days off and weekends and still contribute to the learning process.

The longest-lasting way to incorporate fathers further into the schooling process is to remove obstacles and make it as easy as possible. Fathers can plan their own events or mothers can schedule lessons around upcoming events that they know the father will be interested in. The key is to make the involvement as easy and natural as possible.

Another factor to success is to acknowledge the contributions that fathers make. By letting fathers know that their efforts are appreciated and that they are making a difference, the incentive to stay involved will continue. Some ideas for feedback include sharing the results of tests or letting fathers view projects their children have completed based on an activity, lesson, or homework that the father has helped with.

Homeschooling needs to be treated as a partnership, which it most definitely is. Fathers should be included in choosing the homeschool approach and/or curriculum and should be kept involved in all decisions as they come up so that both parents support one another.

Of course the best way to initiate and keep fathers involved in homeschooling is to ask them what they are interested in or how they would like to participate. Fathers may already have some ideas of ways they can help but are unsure of how to begin for fear that their efforts might not be constructive or welcomed in an established system. By making connections to his interests the decisions of when and how to help will be easier to make.

Like all aspects of homeschooling involvement in the process should be integrated into a lifestyle. Including fathers will require being flexible and adjusting schedules to take advantage of free time. However, the payoff will be worth it for the children, the mothers, and the fathers themselves.