A main disadvantage faced by children that study at home is the lack of social interaction with other children their own age. Social skills are necessary in life to easily interact and communicate with others. Whether learning to take turns and raise their hands, or how to deal with different people and personalities, children who study at home often lack the interaction necessary for proper development of these skills. Parents who home school often need to make an extra effort to provide their children with opportunities to engage in interaction with peers.
For your children to learn successfully, time and effort is required. As a parent, you must be present and oftentimes, provide constant supervision to ensure that your child is doing his school work. This requires a decent amount of self discipline. It may be easy to take the day off and go shopping or visit grandma, but you will fall behind in your study schedule, and catching up puts stress on your child and will take the joy out of learning. Some parents that home school also miss the amount of "alone" time they have, or don't have, since they are with their children most of the day or all day, every day.
While you may be extremely skilled at many tasks, teaching may not be one of them. Teaching requires a lot more than just sitting your child in front of textbooks or in front of the computer to review information. Parents must have some sort of instructional skills to help children comprehend their lesson plans. In schools, teachers are certified and have received training and education before they are able to teach students. While this education and certification are not required for a parent to teach her children at home, an ability to successfully instruct is essential for your child to receive a good education.
For some parents, money is a huge disadvantage of home study. Most states do not exempt homeschooling parents from local school taxes. In this case, parents find themselves paying double: paying for school materials and a curriculum in addition to school taxes. Some states do offer educational tax credits; these are available to all, including those who study at private and public schools.
Criticism is also considered a disadvantage for home study children. People can be harsh and sometimes cruel. With home study, your child is surrounded with positive reinforcement, studies at his own pace and receives constant encouragement. This lack of criticism may not fully prepare children for life in the "real" world. Parents, on the other hand, are sometimes met with plenty of criticism by family members and friends who are anti-homeschooling.