Home education is uniquely poised to provide exceptional opportunities to focus on each child’s strengths and weaknesses, both academic and non-academic. Please remember that children have different academic abilities, and there is nothing wrong with possessing gifts in different areas. Academic excellence is not the end-all and be-all. For instance:

• One child may do well in some academic subjects (for instance, math and chemistry) and struggle in others (such as language arts and biology).
• Another child may excel academically but struggle athletically.
• A third child may excel athletically but lack a creative bone in his or her body.
• A fourth child may excel artistically but find academic studies and athletics challenging.
• A fifth child may have equal gifts — of varying ability — in two or more of these (or other) areas.

One thing all of our children have in common is this:

Each of them is a unique individual with a great deal to offer our world.

As home educating parents, let us do our best to inspire our children to excel in their strengths and to improve in their weaker areas, and let us always encourage them to be kind and good members of our families, of our society, and of our world at large.