When people consider teaching their children at home, without any structured curriculum, they may think that the home schooling costs will be able to be kept down to a reasonable level. But this is not necessarily the case at all. If you try to ensure that your children get a state of the art education so that they can compete on a level footing with regular school goers, the costs can skyrocket. In actual fact schooling a child at home can turn out to be quite costly.

A computer, current textbooks, course materials, all these things cost some amount of money, also there are extra costs for any tutors the parent decides to bring in to teach subjects that they cannot teach themselves, such as science or higher level maths. These costs can be minimised when several children are able to reuse the materials.

Another point to consider is that the requirement of having one of the parents tied to the home on a full time basis can deprive the family of an extra wage packet. This can, of course have a substantial impact on the family's income.

Having a membership in a public library, various outside activity classes and other cultural events can also help in keeping the costs down. One idea is to barter expertise or services. For example, the parent of a nine year old has dancing classes; her daughter gets drawing classes in return.

However much it costs, the devotees of home schooling state that the benefits more than outweigh the drawbacks. When you are in control of what knowledge your child receives, and what subjects he or she should be taught and to what level, it can give you loads of freedom and a lot of power. The children and also the parents can benefit greatly from this mutually enriching experience.