Does your family travel or move a lot? Homeschool might be right for you.
by The Varsity Tutors School@Home Team
There are plenty of reasons that a family might need to up and move recurrently. One or both parents could be in a branch of the military or work in a civilian career field that requires mobility. Think, for instance, of acting, journalism, archaeology, or aviation, fields which beg for national and even international travel.
Interestingly, LinkedIn ranks the industries of technology - software, media and entertainment, and professional services as the top three sectors whose members are most likely to move. Within the top industries, individuals whose job functions are related to business development, marketing, and research find themselves needing to pack their bags most often.
Unfortunately, another reason for frequent moves is financial insecurity, which compels families to stay wherever is most convenient or affordable for them at the time. According to an article by Robin Phinney of the University of Minnesota, “mobility is common across the economic spectrum, [but] low-income households move more frequently than other households.”
No matter the reason for relocation—whether it’s Mom’s or Dad’s promotion or their inability to pay the bills—to a young child, the effect can be equally traumatizing. Moves strip familiarity from a person’s life, yet experts say routine is essential for children’s wellbeing.
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services notes that “children feel more confident and secure when their daily activities are predictable and familiar.” Furthermore, routines help kids “develop relationships with the people they interact with and gain a sense of belonging and self-confidence,” with loss of relationships sometimes being the hardest part.
If changing homes can be scary for an adult, imagine what it’s like for a little one who may not have any coping mechanisms. During a move, kids’ old friends and favorite places fade away, and they have no choice but to start the search over for adequate replacements—an exhausting and upsetting process, to be sure.
What’s more, if the new place has a different culture—for instance, if it involves a shift from city to country living, or vice versa—this can be an additional source of stress for kids. No matter how you look at it, moving residences encompasses change, which is synonymous with discomfort, on many different levels.
According to a 2016 study by Rebekah Levine Coley and Melissa Kull, “Frequent moves take a toll on children’s social-emotional well-being. At all ages, each additional move is associated with small declines in social skills and emotional and behavioral problems. Although the effects are small, these deficits can accumulate, leaving multiple movers at greater risk.”
And regular moves affect children academically, too. Recent studies cited by the MacArthur Foundation show that “low-income children who moved three times in a six-year span fell one full school year behind, and those who moved even once lost 4-6 months.” The numbers are shocking.
Though parents may be aware of how moving impacts their children, they may have no other choice in the matter: they either go along with it or lose their job. In such cases, parents should seek out ways to reduce the stressors related to moving—and homeschooling can help accomplish this.
Whereas frequent moves can disrupt a conventional education and result in learning loss, homeschooling can provide the stability needed by families that are always on the go.
Jeanne Faulconer, founder of TheHomeschoolMom.com, explains why: “While they [(children)] change neighborhoods and perhaps move further from grandparents and other relatives, their approach to learning will largely stay the same. Younger kids don’t have to adjust to new teachers, classrooms, or courses. They can continue using familiar books and even stay somewhat on the same learning paths, even though they are in new surroundings.”
In other words, with homeschooling, you can simply pick up where you left off. The books, the lessons, the methods, the people go wherever you go.
Lindsay and Clifford Jobe, who met while on active duty in the U.S. Army, turned to homeschooling precisely for this reason. Lindsay reflects, “In my mind, I just couldn’t see putting him in a school and taking him right back out,” a dilemma facing military parents who choose to have their kids educated at brick-and-mortar schools.
If the Jobes had gone that route, they would have to change their children’s schools every five years or so when they’re restationed. But the flexibility of homeschooling works perfectly for the five Jobe children and their mother Lindsay, who happily teaches them all.
“We can get in the same amount of days as a public school would get,” she remarks, “but we can do it when we want. When my husband comes home from deployment, we can take off a really big break.” Flexibility and stability are the benefits of homeschooling she cites time and time again.
Before COVID-19 struck, approximately 4% of school-aged children in the U.S. were homeschooled. In families with parents in the armed forces, up to 10% of children were. Not surprisingly, both figures have risen considerably since the pandemic.
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