Making the decision to homeschool your children should not be taken lightly as it will have a definite impact on everyone in the family. The good news though is that families from all walks of life, all sorts of different backgrounds, and from every kind of income level are successfully homeschooling their children. So here are the top five steps for homeschooling success.

1. First and foremost, you'll need to have the willing support of everyone in the family including your children and your spouse if you are going to make this whole new educational adventure work. If you have a lot of emotional and behavioral issues with your children, than most likely homeschooling will not be a good choice for you at this time. Likewise if your mate is not ready to completely support you in this endeavor, you can expect some very rough patches ahead. So try to get everyone in the family to commit to giving homeschooling their best support if you want long term success.

2. Before you begin homeschooling honestly appraise your daily schedule and make sure that you are going to have enough time to be able to handle not only all of the school related activities that you will be involved in such as teaching, preparing for the next lessons, grading papers, overseeing class projects and so on, but also be able to handle the normal household and daily chores as well. When you make the decision to homeschool your children, you'll need to bring a good measure of organizational skills in order to get everything done each day. You also have to realize that some of your own personal time will have to be sacrificed more often than you would sometimes like.

3. Another important consideration that needs to be made before you begin homeschooling is whether or your family can survive financially on only one income or not. Because of the demands that homeschooling places on the time and efforts of the parent that is teaching, its very difficult for both parents to be able to work and bring in income. So it would be very wise for you to go over the family finances in advance and make sure that whatever income can be generated by the parent who is working will be sufficient to handle the monthly bills.

4. Consideration should also be given to how you plan on providing social interaction for your children with others of varying age levels. It's important for them to get to know people outside of the family, so well supervised social events can be important to their emotional development. Very often, homeschool support groups in many areas are able to provide this kind of socialization for all of the families who take part in the group.

5. Finally, get to know others in your area who are already homeschooling their children successfully. Try to find out as much as you can about the whole process before you even begin, and then stay in touch with these families for support as you start this new educational adventure. No one can understand the challenges that homeschooling brings as well as those who have actually lived it themselves, so make good use of the friends and contacts that you make in the homeschooling community.

Homeschooling is a challenge to be sure, but it can also be richly rewarding and satisfying. Hopefully, the suggestions given above will help you be able to be more confident and successful in homeschooling your children.

Steadman Issenburg writes on many consumer related topics including education. You can find home school materials and homeschool programs and more by visiting our education website.