Is fear preventing homeschooling and will certification help?

 I've been getting calls from a person who I suspect wants me to homeschool their kid. Since we are of close relation, that wouldn't be a problem except that since they live far away, so homeschooling their kid would involve moving their kid into my home. Don't get me wrong, I want to help, but I don't want to raise any more kids. I am looking forward to my last year as an active homeschooling parent and don't really want to tack on a few more years as mommy to a teenager.  


I get the sense that they feel homeschooling would be impossible for them without proper training, special permission and guidance from the school district, but that is not going to happen... and it doesn't have to.  If homeschoolers can teach their own ADHD, developmentally delayed, and Autistic children successfully without a special education degree, you can certainly homeschool a child - your perfectly normal child
without going to school for it.

What I do want to do is enable them to homeschool their own child.  After all, it is called HOMEschooling. I can provide curriculum suggestions and even grading and putting together the portfolio and because we are that close... I wouldn't even charge them.  All they would have to do is mind the child. Still they appear to be very hesitant.



Now, I do know some people, many other people, who ended up getting teaching certification as they felt it would help them with homeschooling. The reasons vary from being able to get private school accreditation and write an accredited diploma, or to start a business where they administered standardized testing and performed other services for homeschoolers.  There's nothing wrong it that.  Everyone has to do what is best for them.


I recently complained  about a company offering homeschool certification, trying to instill fear and gain a foothold into the homeschool market. If a homeschooling parent is going to get any kind of certification, it should probably be teacher certification which will allow them to perform certain certain educational services to other homeschoolers or to loosen restrictions on your own homeschool.  As homeschoolers, of course, it would make sense to look for an online teaching certification program to learn in the same style as many of us are teaching our own kids.

  
As I move out of the role of homeschooling parent, and into the role of homeschool consultant, I, myself am pondering whether or not any of these certifications would help me.   I still don't feel that homeschoolers need any certifications at all to homeschool their own children, but once you move into working with other children and homeschooling families, a few credentials probably wouldn't hurt.