Easier?

I think I shocked a bunch of people earlier today when I said that homeschooling was easier than public schooling.  Another mom was talking about how I must have so much patience, that she couldn't possibly homeschool her kids, etc. and I said, without really thinking about it, "oh it's so much easier."  True, some concepts are hard and sometimes my husband and I are really searching around for a way to explain something (usually math), but overall I do think it's easier.  Let's see if I can explain it.

First of all, we don't have to follow anyone else's schedule and get up earlier than we'd like.  I read the other day that one reason kids are getting obese in this country is that they don't get enough sleep.  Our kids get to sleep later and I think that's good for them.  Of course, theoretically, we could go to bed earlier, but that's one of the  areas of parenting  that I'm horrible at.  My kids are experts at avoiding going to bed at night for "just one more minute".  If they were in school, I'd have to fight that battle harder.

Secondly, there's homework.  By the time my oldest son was in 5th grade at the public school, he would sometimes have 3 hours of homework a night.  A lot of it was stuff that he already knew, but he just had to keep repeating it and repeating it.  I found it harder and harder to force him to do it when I knew that there really was no reason to.  He already knew the material so what was the point?  Other times, we would struggle with difficult concepts that he had been explained at school but hadn't "gotten".  That part is about the same as we run across those difficult concepts in our homeschool, but we can realize right away that he doesn't understand instead of finding out that he's been behind for several weeks or months and now is failing.   Sometimes I'll realize that he doesn't have the background he needs to do his Algebra work and I'll have him do a couple of weeks of background work, something he missed originally, until he understands that and then he's back into the Algebra textbook. 

The point is that it is a personalized education.  We spend as much or as little time as the child needs on the concept and then we move on.  If we need more background studies, we do those.  If we need to just jump ahead a chapter because they already know it, we can. 

I'll have to explain this to everyone I was talking to this morning so that they can realize why I think that homeschool is easier.  I don't want them to think that we're not doing the work, that we're just sitting around eating bon bons or something and our kids aren't learning.  They are.  It's just such a more efficient method of education than educating a large group.