Let me start with a caveat: This post is not about an extracurricular activity for homeschoolers. I’m talking about the opportunity to be an ambassador for home education.

Last week I spoke with a friend who was slightly apprehensive about the fact that her grandchild is being homeschooled this year. It’s new territory for their family. And though she knows people who are very successfully educating children at home, she has unfortunately also run across some who aren’t getting the job done.

In my experience, it is rare that parents who make the commitment to homeschool—with the attendant investment of time, money, and energy—fail to follow through. In almost twenty years of homeschooling, making the acquaintance of hundreds of homeschooling families, I can only remember two such instances. In both cases, failure was the fault of family dysfunction and not the educational method. Unfortunately, those are the cases that grab the attention of people who are skeptical of homeschooling.

So, how did I respond to my friend? First, I tried to address her specific concerns about the practical outworking of this method in a young family. I’ve been the mom with three (and more) young children, and it’s very doable. When you subtract all the wasted time in a traditional school classroom—taking up lunch money, shuffling a group of 25-30 children from one location to another, or waiting until it’s “time” to start the next subject—it’s possible to cover all the necessary academics at home, with time to spare.

In fact, those early years hold some of my fondest memories of our homeschooling journey. There are so many fun, hands-on projects and great read-alouds. And younger siblings absorb a surprising amount of knowledge by listening and participating alongside big brother or sister. Sure there are challenging days—but that’s not exclusive to homeschooling; it’s part of being a parent.

Then I tried to point out benefits that homeschooling has over traditional schooling—being able to tailor curriculum and instruction to specific needs and ability levels, more time on task, spiritual nurture, shielding tender hearts and minds from unwise influences, and strengthening family ties—to name just a few.

Most importantly, that conversation served as a reminder that, like it or not, we who homeschool are representatives of home education to a watching world. Friends and family may be supporters or skeptics; that doesn’t change our call to homeschool. But it does afford opportunities to explain and demonstrate why we do what we do. How have you been a homeschool cheerleader lately?