11 Factors that Affect Family Dynamics while Homeschooling on the Field

“Should we think about homeschooling next year?”

How many times have you been asked this question by the families you serve? We all know that there’s never an easy answer to important questions like this. Some experienced consultants who work with PACE developed this list of some factors that you might have parents consider:

1. Money
Some families on the field may make the choice to homeschool because international schools are too expensive. But home education is not cheap! Costs for curriculum, materials, internet courses, etc., must be factored into the family budget.

2. Time
The choice to home educate has many implications for a family’s time. One issue we’ve encountered in our consulting is that some agencies expect a certain amount of time to be designated to agency work by both husband and wife. If mom is homeschooling full-time, she may have difficulty meeting the expectations of the agency. Another issue of time is to encourage moms (usually) to factor in planning time to her day, month, and/or year.

3. Size of family and ages of children
The number of children in the family and their ages have many implications for homeschooling. In general, the younger the children, the more time home education will require of parents. Also, a disparity in age of the children can make it difficult to teach many grades simultaneously.

4. Country of service and educational options available
A family’s country of service has many implications for home education. First, it is important for families to understand the laws regarding homeschooling in their host country. Second, local national and/or international school options may make home education essential, making homeschooling a “have to” instead of a “want to.”

5. Personality
In our consulting, we’ve wondered if perhaps certain parent personality types struggle more homeschooling. Whether or not it is your responsibility to speak to this issue will depend upon your role as an education consultant.

6. Educational background
The education background of parents involved in home education is an important factor in home education. This will dictate their comfort level with certain subjects, particularly in the older grades. But another factor has to do with their experience with education in general. There may be issues in their own educational experience that they are projecting on to their own children as they teach them.

7. Learning issues in the family
This is an important dynamic in home education. With many of the types of diagnosed learning problems we see on the field, there are strong genetic factors involved. In other words, for example, a child with ADHD is likely to have a parent with ADHD. On the one hand, this may make a parent more empathetic. But we’ve often seen parents who are very frustrated because they feel that they aren’t able to help their child work through struggles that they have themselves.

8. Confidence level
The confidence level of home educating parents is a major issue we’ve come across in our consulting. This may be due to the fact that many families home educating on the field are doing so out of necessity rather than conviction. When appropriate, consultants will often need to do all that they can to encourage moms suffering from a lack of confidence as they educate their children.

9. Time management skills
We all have varying degrees of organizational and time management abilities. However, in order to effectively home educate, especially while balancing the demands of living and serving cross-culturally, some amount of effective organization and time management needs to be in place in order to teach children and meet educational goals.

10. Structure and scheduling
Many times, parents will come to us as consultants because they are encountering problems in their homeschooling that are due to structural problems. For example, many parents have come to us with questions about home educating children at different levels all at once. “How do I spend the time I need to with this child when my other child is constantly interrupting us with questions?” is a typical example of this.

11. Learning styles/preferences
An important dynamic in home education concerns the learning styles and preferences of both children and parents. We all seem to default to our own learning styles. If a mom’s learning style is highly visual and structured, she will naturally try to teach this way, believing that this is the best way to teach. If this is not a good match with a child’s learning style, frustration will ensue! Talking parents through learning style issues is what education consultants are frequently called upon to do.

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