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Parents who home school do not have to have an advanced degree.  There are a few qualifications of successful home school parents:  love for their children, understanding of their children, desire to keep learning and growing, desire to spend time with their children.  Although it may seem awkward at first, especially if your child has been in a public or private school, teaching will eventually become second hand.  Parents need to learn flexibility and also organization at the same time.  Open communication and a strong bond between parent and child is key to successful home schooling.

Home schooling is legal in every state in the United States.  Each state has its own guidelines for home schooling.  There are also plenty of support groups for parents who home school.  Some private schools offer home school support and/or curriculum.  After school group activities, such as sports, or science are also offered by several different programs.  Friends and family can also help with home education.  Sometimes there are co-op home school groups, where one person teaches math and another parent teaches history.

There are also support groups for parents of home schoolers who feel burned out or frustrated.  There is guidance on teaching and teaching classes parents can take.  Continued education helps a parent feel confident in their teaching skills.  But keep in mind that every parent in a teacher at some point, it is unavoidable when you are a parent.

Parents document the progress of their home schooled children with testing, some are annual, and some are alternative assessments.  Keeping records of your child’s daily activities and learning is essential to monitoring the child’s progress. When parents find it difficult to teach a certain subject, they turn to private tutors, online classes, CD tutorials or community college classes to supplement their studies.

My oldest daughter has the worst handwriting.  She is old enough to know better, but seldom takes the time to slow down and write legibly.  How often do you write in a day?  Probably more than you think.  And when your child has poor handwriting in school, their grades can suffer – merely by the fact that their teacher can’t read what they’ve written.  How can you help?
Cursive writing used to be a bigger deal than it is now.  I remember being told in junior high that I would have to write in cursive once I reached high school.  In high school, they told me I would have to write cursive in college.  None of these held true.  It doesn’t matter whether your child writes in print or cursive, as long as you can read what it says.
If your child isn’t writing well, find out why.  Are they just too lazy to take the time, or are they having difficultly with the letters?  Once you know the why, you can begin to fix the problem.
Have your child practice writing for 15 minutes a day.  This can be done during regular homework time.  Start with letters that are more difficult and work your way through the alphabet.  Make sure they know how to hold their pen or pencil correctly.  This will help their hand relax and not tire as quickly.  Pens or pencils should be held with the thumb and forefinger pinching the pen, and the middle finger can go underneath as a rest.
Make sure your child is writing each word correctly.  You can find notebooks with the alphabet written inside the cover, and these can be a guide.  Most will show the correct way to write each letter.  Give your child the tools they need to be successful in school.

School is out for the day.  The kids are home.  They have had their after school snack.  Now they want to play.  When should they get their homework done?  This answer depends on your kids and your schedule at home.  Find the time that works best for your family.
Sometimes it works best to get the homework done and out of the way.  Right after school, you can sit down with your kids and talk about their day.  It’s a great time to pull out the homework and get to it.
After dinner you can clean up the kitchen table and plop down the textbooks.  The kids have had time to play and relax after school.  This might be the perfect time to engage their minds.
If your kids are early risers, getting homework done in the morning before school might work well for your family.  They can eat breakfast and get ready for school.  Instead of morning cartoons, this might be a great alternative.  If you have extra time, sit down with your kids and help them finish up their homework.  This will be a great prep to get them ready for a day of learning at school.
You don’t want to do the last minute homework dash.  This can happen when your children don’t have a regular homework time.  It can be easy to forget about homework after school.  Next morning, as your children gather their things for school, they suddenly remember.  This adds stress to your morning and gives unnecessary stress to your kids.  Make sure that you find a time to do homework that works for your family.  Consistently doing homework or after school reading helps develop successful study habits that will carry with them.