Benefits of Homeschooling: The Unofficial List

1. Peer Pressure isn't of the same influence when you aren't surrounded by hundreds of kids that are all desperately trying to claw their way to the top of the popularity food chain. Therefore:
    a. My children have never been too embarrassed to give me a hug in public.
    b. Fashion fads and trends may be noticed but are not held to the highest priority. If my kid likes an outfit? They wear it, regardless of whether or not the Most Popular Kid would approve.
    c. I have yet to be asked to buy any name brand, ever, by any of my children, in 13 years of    parenting. That? IS AWESOME.

2. Back to School Shopping consists of me walking through the sale aisle at WalMart and grabbing whatever brand name of crayons, markers and paper are the cheapest. And I am TOTALLY FINE with "Bold and Crazy" colors. Why the hell not?

3. Speaking of Back To School Shopping, my children wear their pajamas on the first day of school. Or not. Last year, my daughter put on a frilly dress and was barefoot while Evan wore his cozy jammie pants.

4. No. Homework.

Working on the Hunger Avengers workbook from the ConAgra Foundation this summer, just for fun.

5. Noticing #4, remember that this means that every night, we spend with each other, not stressing over the clock that tick tick ticks on towards bedtime. There are no late-night arguments over forgotten math work or a weird science lesson that I have never heard of before. All of that stuff is handled before 1:00 in the afternoon; leaving the evening for US and dance and karate and gymnastics and visiting friends and family and getting to see their dad...

6. I haven't used an alarm clock in 4 years....

7. People tend to think I'm a rockstar of sorts. "You homescool?!? I could never do that!" While this is not true and I honestly believe that ANYone could homeschool, if they really wanted to (Seriously: it's easier to teach 3 kids for a few hours in the morning when they're alert and have your full attention than it is to handle 3 kids' homework at 4 in the afternoon after they've BEEN at school all day and just want to decompress), it still gives me a little boost to my ego to be fawned upon for my perceived awesomeness.

8. Did I mention that we have NO HOMEWORK?!? Trust me; it's important enough to mention twice.

There's still time to download your own copy of the Hunger Avengers booklet from the Conagra site!

9. Being with my kids is actually kind of fun. (When it's not aggravating.) I mean, I like my family (most of the time) and, I think they kind of like me, too. I will profoundly miss all of this family time when my eldest goes off to try out High School at the public school in another year (SOB!).

10. Just THINK of the gas I save on not driving to and from school!! Then again, we go on tons of field trips, so maybe that cost is counteracted. BUT, that means that we are going on FIELD TRIPS which counteracts that factor! 

School starts soon.

When, exactly? I'm not sure. Whenever the neighbor kids stop ringing my bell, I guess. Hope it's a great year for ALL of you, be it homeschool, public, private or WHATEVER works for your family.

Everyone is all lined up and ready to learn. I am TOTALLY including Legos into Evan's history lessons this year... Somehow....

*FYI, I am not saying that this is the only way to educate your children. That's an obvious fallacy! I'm just listing some of the benefits of MY situation. Please feel free to list the benefits of YOURS!

*ConAgra Foods Foundation is still running their Hunger Free Summer campaign to help battle childhood hunger during the summer months. You can still help by downloading a copy of their booklet from their Facebook page and by sharing the link! Each free download or share equals a free meal for a child in the USA.

(disclaimer : Though I am being compensated by ConAgra Foods to help spread the word about their Hunger-Free Summer campaign, all opinions remain my own.)