The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook

Over the past four, now going on five, years since we starting educating our children at home, I have read several home education books. One of my favorite books is "The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook" by Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore. I love this book because it promotes fun and stress-free ways to educate your children at home. The flow of the book is interesting in that it starts off each chapter with a synopsis of a real homeschooling family, not just examples from the authors own experiences. Then the chapter proceeds with how that family over came an obstacle, grew in their efforts to homeschool their children, and success stories of children and youth who graduated from homeschooling.

The first part of this book is about stress-free ways to educate children at home. Too often parents try to replicate a public school education at home. This does not work! The public system is geared for one teacher to teach 30 children at the same level, which they really are not all at the same level anyway, but that is an entirely different subject. Teaching at home is so much more fun when the ideas and examples set forth in this book are practiced at home.

Some of the best parts of this book are the success stories of various families whose children went on to get into college, many with scholarships, and become successful people in society. The stories are heartwarming and ring true with homeschooling families in that their efforts are not wasted. I know for me, this was a nice read in that it was more than just about how to homeschool. It is about achieving that graduation or sorts, whether through a GED, diploma, or just going straight into college.

What I gained from this book is more confidence in myself, as an educated person and as a homeschooling parent, that what I have felt prompted or rather called to do, which is to homeschool my children, is an obtainable goal. A worthy goal even, to provide my children with a more exciting, personally geared, fabulous private education in the comfort of their own home and out in the real world. I highly recommend this book to all homeschooling parents and those who are thinking about home education as a possibility.