Parenting

We went down the route of homeschooling for our son when he was 4 & 5. It wasn't our initial choice, however he simply wasn't ready for school - we'd have to phsyically drag him to the school screaming and crying and throwing himself on the road when we were trying to cross it, couldn't get him into the car, and him physically hurting himself (punching his head) and saying things like "then I'll kill myself". Once we'd pulled him out his mental health got way better.

I'll summaries our experiences for the limited time we did it:

Pros

• Can tailor learnings based on topics that interest your child
• You can go at your own pace. School is like a conveyer belt where you're just riding this process at a set pace. You can go as fast or slow as you need.
• Generally just a more relaxed pace, no need to be up at 7am to be out the door for 8:30. If your kid is tired or works best in the afternoon, you're not locked into a timetable. If your kid isn't feeling it that day, you don't have to do anything; or if they're in a very engaging mood on the weekend, you can do more then.
• More freedom to go and visit places during the day; significantly cheaper and quieter than when you'd go on a weekend
• No stupid school uniform bullshit rules! (Coming from a UK perspective)
• You don't need to strictly stick to the curriculum (although I'd advise trying to work close to it)
• You can do family activities/holidays in term time, which can be significantly cheaper

Cons

• You need to be attending groups and meet ups with other homeschool kids, regularly. I've put this as a con because it can be hard work - both the primary educator and the child/children need to get on! Sometimes you might find a group but it's cliquey and it's difficult for the adults to keep going.
• On the above, there's different reasons why people home educate, but unfortunately you'll find a fair few anti-vaxxers.
• The CONSTANT worry about "are we doing the right thing?" The feeling of falling "behind" their peers in school, and whether you're actually doing enough.
• Expensive: depending how you do it, you're either going to have one parent out of work entirely, or have some kind of reduced hours for both parents who will take turns in being the educator. Activies in the days and getting resources can be expensive. You might also want a tutor to cover more difficult subjects if you don't feel confident teaching it yourself
• Constantly having to justify to others why you're doing it and not having others think you're insane
• Dealing with people within the home school community who think their approach is best and yours is totally wrong
• It might test your relationship with your partner if you're both not fully onboard.

In the end our son made the decision himself that he wanted to try school again and he ended up starting 3 days a week, and then ultimately full time. There's been some wobbles but he's doing really well now. Has the usual complaints about school, like we all did, but he cracks on and always tell us about his day.

Personally I wouldn't recommend it unless there's a good reason to and you and your partner, if you have one, are 100% commited to it, and know that there's a healthy homeschool community around that are doing plenty of activities.