Large families make up one of homeschooling’s stereotypes–a line of eight or more children, all following obediently behind Mom and Dad. Those of us who have been homeschooling long know both the truths and the realities of this picture.
The truth is that plenty of families, large or small, find a way to make homeschooling work beautifully for them.
But what about families who only have one child? Is homeschooling really an option for these parents and children?
To find out, let’s take a brief look at the advantages and disadvantages of homeschooling an only child.
The Advantages
Looking back throughout history, tutoring was seen as the best type of education a student could receive. A highly respected and successful model of education, it was the method often chosen by the wealthy to educate their own children at home.
Photo by Rick Audet
A teacher/student ratio of one to one is hard to beat–having that amount of personal attention is priceless. It means that much less time is needed to cover academics, leaving hours of time to spend playing, volunteering, or working in a way that is meaningful to the student.
The mother in this video, which I highly recommend, states that she was able to cover her daughter’s entire third grade requirements in less than one month. In her daughter’s case, this meant the extra time could be devoted to her outside interests and socialization opportunities.
For the only child there is no competition, no sibling rivalry, and no time management struggles for Mom trying to stretch herself between multiple children. Time is an abundant gift in an only child homeschool.
The Disadvantages
I’m sure you can guess the main disadvantage of homeschooling an only child–socialization.
Photo by D. Sharon Pruitt
Those of us who teach more than one child know that the overarching concerns about homeschooling and socialization are more or less unfounded. But would families with just one child be better off enrolling in a traditional school?
Perhaps, but consider this: in a typical classroom much of the day is spent encouraging children to stop socializing. Students are told to raise their hand before talking, stay in their seat, and do their own work without interacting. The actual time spent socializing in a regular school day is minimal–usually revolving around recess, lunch, and occasional group projects.
Helping your child learn to interact appropriately with others is a goal that can easily be met by an intentional parent, especially one who does only have one child and can therefore devote the necessary time to arranging positive social opportunities.
As this helpful post demonstrates, a variety of group lessons, homeschool or church groups, and playdates can meet the social needs and requirements of an only child who is schooled at home. As with any children, their social needs will be determined by their age and personality.
Parents should also remember to let your son or daughter have time to play alone and not try to overcompensate or overschedule your child’s time.
If you’re considering homeschooling your only child, be encouraged. Know that many advantages await you, that you’re in good historical company, and that a home education could be the best choice possible for your son or daughter.
Are you homeschooling or have you homeschooled your only child? Please share your experience with us.
Thank you!! I homeschool my only child. We love it. He went to school from Pre-K thru 2nd. He was bored in school because he is so far ahead. We have homeschooled for 2 years. He is so happy now. Its a challenge because I am a single parent.
I am an older Mom with our only child who just turned five. He is very bright and has been reading for several months now. I have been wanting to homeschool him, but his lack of social skills has been worrisome ie; having fits when he loses, storming off with an attitude, defiant and repeated challenging behaviors. I don’t have any friends with children at home and I want to do what is best for him, would live everyone’s take on this….he is involved with piano and karate for a total of three times a week. I was told he needs more structure although we are pretty structured…we do go to church every week, MOPS every other week…thoughts? Thanks!
I am an older mom of an only child (will be 5). We have no family near us at all and recently moved to a new province. I put her in a small preschool but the teacher said as my child already reads, writes and can do maths, she was bored at preschool. I took her out and we just carried on at home. She is extremely curious and we always work to find out answers. I was told to have her tested to see if she is gifted. We did and she scored off the charts and has been accepted into a school for the gifted. I am a fully qualified, experienced high school maths and science teacher. I was not happy with what I saw in the public schools. As I watched my child set about investigating her world and I struggled to keep up while setting aside all my expectations, and until the whole school for gifted option came up, I fully intended to home school and simply worried, as everyone does about socialization. Now I have to added worry about what is better for my child: homeschooling (we get on well, I know how she approaches life (quirky) and have a great time) versus a specialist school. I’ve never taught in a school for the gifted. I worry that they’ll lay all sorts of stereotypes on her that she doesn’t need, or pressure she won’t like. Or shush her. When I visited the school one mother told me that the most common word spoken to her son (Grade one) was ‘ shush’. That turned my blood cold. My kid asks questions and we search out the answers. If she asks a question it’s because she wants to know. Thinking about the ‘Shush’ is making this decision even harder. Any one got any ideas?
Let me add my thanks for this article. Most homeschooling articles do seem to be about families with more than one kid, and some of the concerns (and pleasures) just don’t apply!
As I have been just married and understanding the importance of homeschooling was very important I think after reading this excellent resource tailored by you. But Is it going to be easy to homeschool an only child when homeschooling doesn’t exist within our neighbourhood? Waiting for your reply, thanks!
Alex’s latest post: Easy Peasy Homeschool : Everything You Need To Know
Nice article and great discussion!
I homeschool my only son who has just turned 7. I had always intended to homeschool, but when Kindergarten time came I put him in school just to make sure that if he loved it, he could stay in school and if he didn’t we would pull the plug. It was an epic fail, we lasted three months.
I am also a single mom so that adds a pretty hefty challenge to time management but I think there are a number of things that have made our situation really work for us. Number one is we have built a community of support around us. My mom, dad, and step-dad are all involved with raising my son. They spend a great deal of time with us/him and help him learn and engage with the world. My son often spends his days fishing with his grandpa and exploring nature while other kids are at school. We also have my brothers and some of my close cousins who are active in his life. He has one little cousin who also homeschools and they are like brothers. They play and fight like lil bros! And often do experential learning activities together. We also have a larger group of friends who all homeschool, but I am the only one with one child.
We play one or two team sports per season and my son has a pretty solid group of friends from his sports. He gets invited to parties and playdates etc and I find that one key difference between my homeschooled only and the public school kids is that a majority of them are all exhausted by the time after school activities come up. Many of the other parents are the ones to point this out and are stressed that their kids are so tired.
Another way we manage is that my son is very introverted. Bigger groups stress him out and he likes and needs alone time, quiet time, and one-on-one play. I remember being a very introverted kid at school and was a wallflower. I feel like I just watched school happen as a child rather than actually being a part of it. I don’t know if our situation would work if he was more extroverted, but I imagine we would just have to roll with the punches and find ways that work for us.
Finally my last two cents is that we “unschool”. This was probably hardest for me to do, but with the support of our learning consultant (we do a program called Self Design), I learned to chill out and embrace every day learning activities. I still monitor learning outcomes, but we do them through experiential learning, investigating interests, answering the many “whys” with real answers, unstructured play, etc. The one thing we do structured is the Khan Academy math program online because my son loves it. Even though we have never done any other “lessons” my son is well above/far above grade level in all areas. I found that it helps to spend time reflecting on what we learned from an activity or throughout the day so that both of us remember that we learn from everything. I don’t think homeschooling an only as a single mom would would work if we were trying to do lessons throughout the day.
One more key thing that makes this work is that I work from home and I love my work. I do research consulting and photography/film-making/graphic design so can make a good living working 20-25 hours a week and also live in a small, northern town where the cost of living isn’t high. So I guess my key message is that every situation is unique but that homeschooling an only isn’t impossible, but it is important to build a community of support and to do what works for your family.
Looking forward to continue following this post! Cheers.
Oh, I’m 2 years late to this post! I hope to receive some responses :).
I have an only son, 10 years old and in 4th grade. He has attended a well-respected, high- performing, private Christian school since Kindergarten. He has never wanted to go to school. I’d call him a social introvert…he loves his friends and he loves his alone time. Though he is “popular”, he does struggle with interpersonal relations. I believe his difficulties with conflict and his chafing at the structure and discipline are the main causes of the anxiety he experiences. He even has physical symptoms due to his school anxiety. I have kept him in school for a few reasons (though, in my heart I want to homeschool him): 1) I am not very disciplined myself and fear I’d get flustered and he’d end up on video games or tv too much 2) I fear he’d miss out on the high-quality teaching, public speaking opportunities, and rites of passage that his school offers and 3) I’ve always read that facing fears is the way to overcome them. So I’ve figured he should stay in school and face people if that’s what hes afraid of. But when is too much too much?
Thanks for any responses!
Hi Amy! I think you should listen to your heart, or at least give it a try! There’s probably a reason why it is leading you the way that it is, and by exploring homeschooling you’ll be able to see how it goes and how your son does. I’d encourage you to look in the “new, start here” section to figure out how to get started. Imagine ten years from now, when your son is grown, what you’d wish you had done now. That often helps to point me in the right direction. All the best!
Huh! I just replied to a message above that was quite old, but seeing as yours is more recent and I think it might be helpful, I’ll repost it here.
“Although I had friends, going to school was miserable for me. I ended up with about a 50% absence rate because the stress of it all made me physically ill with migraines and every illness out there (I had a stress-weakened immune system). When I was 16, I made the decision to switch to a home learning environment and found it so much better. I was sent the work in the mail and completed it myself with the help of online resources. I found that I was able to get through much more in much less time (so much time was wasted in school!) and focus energy on the subjects and topics that I wanted and needed. I also had much more time for extracurricular activities and even a part-time job which I learned far more from than school. I’m now doing my degree through a well-respected New Zealand university via correspondence overseas, all the while learning languages through immersion and teaching English to fund it all (learning all sorts of working, organizational and presentation skills in the meantime). I think back now and wish that I had been homeschooled from the start – I could have learned so much more in much less time, and had energy and health to be able to better enjoy every aspect of life with. If school is stressful for your child, and you have the resources and motivation to homeschool, I would highly recommend doing it.”
As he is a bit younger than I was, he probably will need that extra parental support to help stay focused. Having said that, you really can get a lot more done in less time, so he should have that extra free time. There are definitely other ways he could be encouraged to use it more positively though through clubs and fun learning apps like Duolingo (game-like foreign language learning) etc.
I’m considering possibly homeschooling my son, who will be in 8th Grade next year. He’s a very intelligent boy, but has been struggling with grades the past years, since about 5th Grade. We go around in circles about homework and it seems that I’m nagging him all of the time about his grades. He’s been anxious and angry and depressed lately. I’m wondering if homeschooling will actually help him since he’ll be able to go at his own pace and we can structure the schooling to better suit him. He keeps telling me that he HATES school and he thinks its stupid. I don’t know if he feels overwhelmed and is afraid to say it or what. I know he loves band and seeing his friends, but that’s all he really likes about school. I’ve been praying about his situation with school and just life in general as a 13 year old 7th Grader and I just recently got the idea of homeschooling. I’m wondering if God is impressing upon my heart to give that a try next year. My concerns are, that I’m not very organized. I know I can get organized if I have to. And, that I have a weird work schedule. But the weird work schedule could possibly work to a homeschooling advantage maybe? There is also the issue right now of, he’ll start off the trimester OK but then if he gets sick and misses a week because he can’t go back to school unless he’s feever free for 24 hours then he gets behind and has to catch up. I think that discourages him and he loses his motivation to even try. I’m wondering if homeschooling would be a better fit. I know we can always give it a try and if he doesn’t like it, he can go to a public school for high school. He has gone to public school since Kindergarten and my fear is that if I keep him in public school that he may give up altogether and drop out in High School. Has anyone else had a similar situation? What are some thoughts? He’s an only child and I’m not worried about socialization because he can get that from the church youth group. He’s always had issues working in group settings. So when group projects come along, he always ultimately ends up doing them alone because he gets flustered when the other kids reject his ideas, or the other kids don’t participate and he ends up doing all of the work anyway, or he gets kicked out of the group for one reason or another. I think he’s just not happy in a school setting and may be happier learning at home. Any thoughts from anyone else? Anyone else have a similar situation with their kid and pulled them out to homeschool instead?
Hi Tammy! Is your son interested in giving homeschooling a try? If so, I would definitely encourage you to go for it! It sounds like it could be a perfect fit in your situation, helping him avoid the unnecessary and unhelpful aspects of the school day that you’re mentioned above.
Here are a couple of other posts/sites I’d recommend you check out:
https://simplehomeschool.net/mentalhealth/
https://simplehomeschool.net/top-educational-goal-tweens/
https://www.tjed.org
Great read!!! Thanks for sharing such a great blog, blog like these is really helpful.
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