Has Your Child’s School Failed Him?

I’ve been watching an interesting thread in the Time4Learning Parent’s Forum this week.  The thread is called "Accidental Homeschooler," and the parents involved in the thread have been venting about the dilemma they are faced with.

It seems that the school system their children have been enrolled in has failed them in one way or another.  Either their child wasn’t learning enough, had special needs that the school system wasn’t adequately addressing, or had grades so low it was affecting the child’s self esteem.

As a parent whose hard-earned tax-dollars are funding the schools, this can be an incredibly frustrating experience.  No one expects perfection out of the public school system, but they do expect that their child will be adequately prepared and educated.  They expect teachers and resource workers to be adaptive to children’s particular learning needs.  And they expect that when a child is failing, that every effort will be made to bring him or her back up to grade level.

When these expectations aren’t met, some parents consider a whole other alternative - - homeschooling.  These "accidental homeschoolers" had not started out with a plan to homeschool, but because of the failures of the school system,  decided to see if homeschooling would be a better choice for their child.

The parents in the forum thread I’ve been following have decided to try out the Time4learning online homeschool curriculum for their child because it better meets their child’s learning needs.  Time4Learning is:

  • Standards-based
  • Engaging and Interactive
  • Affordable
  • Easy-To-Use (especially for first time homeschoolers)
  • Adaptable for use with both special needs and gifted learners

If your child’s school system is not meeting his or her needs, and you are thinking of schooling your child at home, then click here to download our free Welcome to Homeschooling guide for new homeschoolers. Who knows…maybe YOU will be the next person to join the forum thread to tell the story of how you became an "accidental homeschooler."

Posted under Homeschool, Special Needs Learning, homeschool curriculum, homeschooling manual, new homeschoolers, problems at school

This post was written by Kerry on October 22, 2008

Help For New Homeschoolers

“It was a dark and stormy night…”

Snoopy used to always start out his novels with this phrase, but for homeschoolers just starting out, it hits a little too close to home!

Deciding to homeschool your child, for whatever reason, can be a scary prospect.  Especially when the decision has had to be made abruptly because of health difficulties or problems with the child’s current school, the weight of suddenly being an accidental homeschooler can feel “dark and stormy” indeed.

Homeschooling had been the last thing on my mind the summer that I signed my oldest son up for kindergarten.  But within weeks of registering him, he had developed a rare infection of the brain that weakened his immune system and made going to school an impossibility.  So I scrambled all through the summer trying to find out information on homeschooling - - what were the legal requirements, what types of curricula was available, what the lingo and abbreviations meant. 

I would have given anything for a simple users guide that gave me all the  important information I needed in one concise place.  Fortunately, new homeschoolers today don’t have to just wish for such a thing.  Thanks to Time4Learning, anyone can access a wonderful free manual for new homeschoolers called

picture courtesy of Time4Learning.com

Welcome to Homeschooling.”

This comprehensive guide will give you insights into the laws, the methods, the choices, the scheduling, and the resources that will help you most as you begin your homeschooling journey. Instead of having to search blindly across the internet, or listen to twenty different pieces of advice from twenty different homeschooling acquaintances, the information you are looking for is all in one easily-downloadable document. 

Homeschooling doesn’t have to be scary - - or “dark and stormy.”  All you need is a little guidance and the desire to succeed. 

So let me be the first to say…”Welcome to Homeschooling!”

Posted under Homeschool, homeschooling manual, new homeschoolers

This post was written by Kerry on October 14, 2008