Family Relationships

One of the benefits of homeschooling is the opportunity to strengthen family relationships.

Good relationships take time. I think about how different things are for my daughters, as apposed to many of their friends. My daughters interact with each other on and off all through the day. Because we almost never do "school work" after dinner, evenings are family and fun time. Their friends who are in school see very little of their siblings during the day, maybe only a few minutes at breakfast while they are rushing to get out the door to school. Their evenings are filled with "homework", leaving little time for family interaction.

Of course, my children do get on each others' nerves and quarrel sometimes. Recently, while driving home from some activity or another, the girls were arguing in the back seat. I just had to smile when I heard my 5 year accuse her sister of being "so argumentative." Another benefit of spending so much time with her older sisters is that she knows how to use really big words.

This is not to say that my children only interact with each other. Today, my 5 year old had another homeschool friend come over after lunch to play for a few hours. After dinner, the older girls went with another homeschool friend to an activity at church. However, I think they are clear where their loyalties lie. Our family is a team. The relationship we build in our family is one of the few things we can take with us when we go.