10 Reasons to Homeschool Your Creative Child

All children (and people) are creative in their own way.  For my list today, I’m focusing on the child that is creative in an artistic way.  That might be painting, dancing, music, or any number of other fine arts (although it likely may include several for a lot of artistically creative children).

In our home, my oldest is very creative when it comes to storytelling, but the arts (of any kind) just aren’t his cup of tea.  He actually does take piano lessons and enjoys them, however.  (It actually seems to come very naturally to him.  In fact, he can’t name the notes, but just knows what to play by looking at the music.)

My middle son really enjoys art projects and music (he also plays piano), as well as sewing.

My daughter loves all things art.  She’s crazy about any art endeavors (especially painting), loves music (she wants to start cello lesson), does ballet, and is up for anything artsy or having to do with crafts.

While this wasn’t our reasoning for homeschooling, I think their creativity has been able to grow (and continue) because of homeschooling.

(First, let me have a disclaimer here: Do I think that creative kids can keep being creative when they’re in public or private school?  Absolutely.  It can sometimes be harder to find the time, but it definitely is very possible.  Just know that I’m not saying that homeschooling is the only way to foster it.  It’s just one way.)

10 Reasons to Homeschool Your Creative Child

1. The arts are being cut in schools.  As school budgets are shrinking (and testing requirements are growing), fine arts programs are being cut in many schools and fine arts teachers are often the ones whose jobs are on the chopping block.

2. The arts can be integrated throughout your curriculum.  Painting to represent a historical event?  Great!  Make up their own play about what mold does to bread?  Fabulous!

3. Children come by creativity in a very natural way.  Then, as they grow, they start to be told by others that they’re not good enough, and then they eventually stop because they believe it.  Homeschooling can sometimes help them to not feel pushed to stop.

4. Large groups, like in schools (and certainly in many other settings), seem to thrive on conformity.  Conformity is not necessarily a friend of the creative child.

It makes me think of the lyrics from the song Typical Situation by Dave Matthews Band:

Everybody’s happy everybody’s free
Keep the big door open, everyone’ll come around
Why are you different, why are you that way
If you don’t get in line we’ll lock you away

5. You can supply them with good materials.  I love to be able to splurge on some nice art supplies (which I usually share with the kids as well), and they love to be able to use real art supplies.  Most schools also have great art supplies, but they can sometimes be in limited quantities or used sparingly.  You can decide what kind are used and how often they’re used in your own home.

6. There’s more time for practice.  If your child finds they excel at graphic design, photography, dance, singing, or just whatever — they can have more time to work on it.

While our daughter only goes to ballet once a week, we have friends at the same school that are older and now go three times a week.  Those friends have multiple daughters all doing that.  She says that she’s just not sure how that would be possible for them if their daughters were also in school all day.  (Obviously, other people at the school do it.  However, it’s easier when the three times a week lessons aren’t competing with time for homework.)

You can even make practice part of school.  My boys have to practice piano every day as part of our school day.  It makes it easier for us to make sure that they’re getting in their practice each day.  (Even if they still should be practicing more than they do!)

7. They have time to turn their art into a business.  Many teenage homeschoolers are also young entrepreneurs.

Etsy is another wonderful outlet for young artists who want to turn their passion into a business.

8. You make your own homeschool schedule.  If your creative child hates one subject, you can adjust things so that you allow them some of their preferred creative activity as soon as they finish that disliked subject.  Or, if it’s really extreme, you can even let them sandwich the non-preferred activity with some time for their preferred activity.

9. There’s time to learn about a variety of fine arts.  Not only do you have time to try out lots of different types of fine arts, but you have more time to study fine arts (and artists/composers) as well!

10. There is more time to explore the arts independently.  Of course, who are we kidding?  There’s typically more time to explore whatever a child is interested in.

Do you have a creative or artistic child?  What ways do you work to encourage them in the arts (no matter where they go to school)?