At first, I was resistant of the idea of homeschooling. So when my son expressed to us that he wanted to be home-schooled even just for a year, I was apprehensive. Why? First, I was not sure if I and hubby could teach him well all subjects. Secondly, I was afraid he would gain much weight again if he just stays at home with a sedentary life. In his school, he could play a lot and control his diet by the dormitory cafeteria. Thirdly, I wanted him to develop more social skills by mingling with his dorm-mates, classmates and friends and by lots of school activities. But all of these fears have eventually been eroded as we have finally found lots of benefits of homeschooling.
Homeschooling, as long as there is good planning and cooperation between parents and the child, is beneficial in many ways. My son is enjoying his lessons at his own pace. He's also learning responsibility over himself as well as honesty as answer keys are provided at the end of every module. That's actually the covenant we made before we eventually decided to let him home-school. I told him that if you cheat by looking at the answer keys, you won't learn anything and you're cheating yourself as well. His social skills have been enhanced as well by being able to relate to more mature people around him as well as other kids of our host country so he has more international and cultural exposures.
The most significant benefit I'm very happy about his homeschooling is the fact that he has been learning the values firsthand from us, his parents, so we are assured that he's learning lifelong treasures he can keep until he grows old. He now knows the value of hard work. In fact, at his young age of 13, he can now cook his own food, wash his own clothes, clean the house, fix some broken things at home, even take care of his dear little brother. He knows how to budget and make wise purchases as I always take him whenever I buy our groceries and when we go shopping. I show him how to choose quality but well-priced stuff as well as looking for on sale goods that we need. He has learned how to save money and to control his appetite. He grows as a God-loving child and this is what I really want him to be. Having observed him on a daily basis since he has been with us closely, I'm assured that my son will become a good man. Hope he will not change.
Homeschooling is not bad after all. In fact, it has served us more good especially that we have found a good Maths teacher to assist us in teaching him foundation subjects. We want our son to be prepared with the necessary skills he needs when he goes to college for him to have a bright future but we also want him to be responsible, respectful, wholesome, honest, hardworking and God-loving. I'm not saying though that he won't learn these values in school but with our close supervision, constant reminder and modeling, we are more assured that we get what we want as we can observe him more closely than when he is far from us studying. At his age, he needs special attention, love and care from us, his parents.
I appreciated the coming over of our Bangladeshi friend to our house recently. I got inspired by her being proactive. She and her husband are in the management fields so I have learned from both of their perspectives. They both have a definite plan how long they will be staying here in Malaysia like my hubby but I didn't have.; I was some kind of uncertain. I might have been affected by some factors but my friend's being proactive has moved me a lot. I finally registered for a PhD program and I'll be starting classes this coming Sunday. This is what I'm thrilled about right now, going back to school after quite some time but I'm more thrilled about its results. Proactive means projecting what lies ahead and Stephen Covey says, it's visualizing your goals like you're seeing the results ahead. 
