Не запрещать им [детям] играть сколько хотят. Детские игры не суть игры, но прилежнейшее упражнение детей. (Екатерина Великая из «Наставлений к воспитанию внуков»)
Promulgation of ideas of home education is interconnected with one serious, but not obvious problem – it cannot be advocated by itself. The same way as a school system is not a goal as it is, homeschooling is not a goal, but merely a tool.
And when you are trying to advertise the excellent tool, without addressing the purposes of its use, you inevitably face misunderstanding, doubts, and sometimes even aggression, animosities. Therefore, for me the most important question is - WHAT FOR this home-based, family form of children education occurs in the given family? It is accompanied by the question HOW other forms of education (day-care, school) WILL PREVENT achievement of those purposes, which the family puts before itself when raising their children. Thus, I put the emphasis on the first question and only sometimes address the second, i.e. I focus on pluses of what I have chosen for my children, instead of on minuses which I rejected. In this article I want to address the question how home education and well-being are connected.
Usually, speaking of health, we mean its physical part – whether the person is strong, has good immune system, how often he gets ill, whether he has a good body posture, sight, his internal organs are working properly etc. However, as a person exists not only in physical dimension, but also in mental, social and spiritual dimensions, it would be correct to consider all those aspects as well.
Well-being of a person is influenced by his lifestyle, by food he is eating, his occupation, and hobbies. Large part of the life of the child consist of learning in different forms, therefore the way this process is organized is directly reflected on all aspects of his health.
What possibilities homeschooling gives to a child and how it is reflected on his well-being?
Here some examples from my experience in the elementary school.
Homeschooled children feel more secure and confident, because their life and learning environment remains in the family – the familiar place. These children do not have to put a lot of efforts into creating forced upon them relationships with a large quantity of people – adults and other children, who are not always very pleasant and necessary. Relationships with the teacher (teachers) also can demand a lot of emotional energy from the children. I will talk about it further.