Homeschool Martial Arts Online Live And Virtue Driven


The reasons people have for homeschooling their kids are important enough that they have structured their lives around them. They are such valid concerns in their minds that they are willing to stand up and say no to a school system that doesn’t attempt to address them. This should also translate to other activities their children participate in.

A homeschool martial arts class should do three things. First, it should be virtue based. Second, it should be taught by an experienced homeschooling parent. Third, it should be done in your home, integrated into the children’s normal schedule. Master Booe’s Online Karate Classes do all three.

There are other programs that may have daytime classes or try to cater to a market opening they wish to exploit. But does this mean they understand the needs of homeschooled children? Is the reason they are doing these classes the same as the one the parents have for choosing this route in the first place? Let me show you what a proper homeschool martial arts program should look like.

Martial Arts For Homeschooled Children Should Be Virtue Based

What are the statistics behind why most people choose to homeschool their children. This can inform us on how to judge a program for homeschoolers more accurately. The numbers are overwhelming. The vast majority of homeschooling families choose virtue based and religious reasons to homeschool their kids.

In the chart below, data from the U.S. Department of Education shows clearly the reasons parents choose homeschooling. The accompanying numbers of students listed for each statistic is based on the numbers given by the U.S. Census Bureau. (2012 census relates that there were a total of 48,299,727 children in k-12 education in the U.S.)

According to research done by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), on average there are around 3% of these children on any given year that are homeschooled. This number equals 1,448,992 homeschooled kids using the 2012 numbers. The student numbers below will be estimates, but the overwhelming nature of what they show is concrete.

Reason For Homeschooling% Of Parents
Giving This Reason
# Of Children
Homeschooled For This Reason
Is This Reason
Religious /Virtue
Based?
Specific Religious (Christian) Education64%927,354
Proper Moral and Virtue Instruction77%1,115,724
Concerns About Morality And Safety In School Settings91%1,318,583/✘
Dissatisfaction With Instruction In School Settings74%1,072,254/✘
= Religious Based … /✘ = Mixed Religious and Non-Religious

According to data from the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, 75% of homeschooling families identify as Christ centered. This isn’t surprising seeing as the culture of the West, which most assuredly includes the U.S. was constructed on the basis of Christian values and principles.

So what should it mean for these families that have chosen their children’s education when they are looking for an activity to supplement their homeschool curriculum. The answer should now be clear.

The first and most important choice should be made along the same lines as their choice to homeschool in the first place. Virtue teaches us how to be. The universal truths that have been known from Church leaders down through St. Thomas Aquinas, reaching back to Greek philosophers like Aristotle, and through the Jewish people are paramount.

Religion is not inherent to the martial arts, but it is in one way or another to the instructor of your children. My classes are based on these eternal truths and are designed and taught with our relation to our Creator ever present. Many of my classes are not ‘on the nose’ with faith declarations. Those are for parents to help their kids with.

Yet, I do have some classes that are specifically dedicated to Christian based modeling and mentoring. The same techniques are taught, it is the virtue and character message that runs throughout that becomes explicitly stated.

If you are wanting a homeschool martial arts class for your children with solid character values incorporated, I have classes for you. If you are wanting more explicitly Christ centered classes, contact me and I will tell you how you can get your Little Homeschool Ninjas involved.

Since I am the only one that will ever teach these classes, space is limited. I do not contract out or hire in for instruction. My standards are too high to entrust these classes to another. If you are interested in getting your Little Ninja involved, contact me now or visit my Online Dojo Page today.

What Type Of Experience Should Homeschool Parents Require For Martial Arts Instructors?

When we talk about experience there are two different topics that needs to be covered. Instructors must have had a lot of time training in, competing in, and instructing the martial arts. These are all very important components.

Yet, an equally important area for an instructor to have had experience in is actually homeschooling children. There are specific ideals and goals that most homeschool parents share for their kids. To be able to fully aid these goals, they must have been shared and experienced by the instructor.

I sadly have met multiple martial arts instructors that simply offer these classes as another avenue for revenue. I have personally heard teachers and school directors insult and put down children and parents of homeschoolers for their choices, while openly trying to market to them.

This brings to mind yet again a phrase I seem to have to repeat to parents, students, and even my own kids to help them keep up their guard against shady intentions of people they may meet.

Don’t listen so much to what people say, watch what they do.

Martial Arts Experience For Homeschool Instructors

It is important that a potential instructor have ample experience in the martial arts. Though, this may be misleading to simply state it in this way. By experience in the martial arts we need to consider their training as a student, proficiency level after black belt, and time instructing.

There is even a further designation that needs to be made here as well. Instructors will have skill sets that make them more or less successful with certain age groups over others. For children, an instructor should have several years of guided and solo experience teaching kids.

Here are some of the questions that a homeschooling parent should get the answers to about any martial arts instructor they are thinking of giving access to their kids. The reason is simple. Our kids are of infinite worth and the role models we allow around them do make a difference.

  • How old are they? (Many school owners hire young and enthusiastic instructors to teach their classes, but who sadly do not have adequate experience with children, instructing, or life in general.)
  • How long have they been teaching the martial arts?
  • How long have they been training in the martial arts? (If these numbers are within two to three years of each other, red flags should go up.)
  • What training have they had in teaching children outside of the martial arts?
  • How long have they been teaching martial arts to kids?
  • Have they won or competed in any competitions?
  • Have they trained any champions in any martial arts competitions?

There should be open and extensive information about these things for any parent of any child considering an instructor for their family. If there is hesitation or a dismissal of any of these there should be flags going up. I have known several ‘instructors’ with little training, no competition history, and limited experience teaching anything who opened martial arts schools.

This is becoming less common than it was maybe in the 90s, but it still exists. Do your homework on your instructor, and this doesn’t mean the school owner. Get information on the actual instructor of your child’s class. The school owner is not of great importance if he is not the one that will be teaching the classes.

My information is open and centered around my decades of training at high levels, successful international fighting record, and the champions I have helped train. If you would like to see my bio, I have a page that I share with my wife for this site that can give you all the details.

For more information before you decide to trust your Little Ninjas to me, visit our about us page. We have our personal story and a good bit about our professional accomplishments there. As always, you can also contact me with any questions you may have. Here is our contact page.

Homeschool Martial Arts Instructors Should Have Experience Homeschooling

One of the things that Homeschool parents all understand is that by nature of the decisions we have made, we are positioning ourselves as the primary teachers of intellectual, social, moral, and spiritual lessons to our kids. A martial arts instructor that homeschools his kids will know and respect that.

You may find that those without that experience cannot help but put themselves inbetween you and your children. Many instructors have ‘mat chats’ with kids in brick and mortar martial arts schools.

The kids are taken away from the parents, sat down, and taught pre-scripted “character” material from corporate sources. Even if they come up with portions or all of it on their own, you as the parents are not the provider of the information nor have any say about it. This is completely opposite of the model most homeschooling families seek.

Then there is also the problem of discipline. The primary role for disciplining children goes to their parents. Some martial arts teachers that I knew really didn’t like teaching.

They enjoyed the sense of power and frankly undeserved respect that they could demand. Of course, there are great instructors out there. It is simply a fact of life that not even good instructors are great in all situations.

As a homeschooling dad, I never put myself as the provider of character based information or discipline for students. I offer myself as a tool to further aid parents in their attempts to raise character filled Little Ninjas.

I always attempt to relate everything to “mom and dad”. One of the huge mistakes our culture has made in the past century is to have steered away from how we were designed, the nuclear family. I take great pains to not step over the boundaries and into roles only meant for parents.

Here is a video explaining how I teach and a bit on the structure of what I do online. I homeschool my kids this way with my wife’s help and this is the same thing I do in my online Karate classes.

To get more information on my Little Ninja Online Karate Classes for your homeschooled kiddos, just click here.

Traveling To Homeschool Martial Arts Classes, Really?

We As Homeschooling Parents Know The Value Of Home Based Education. It is of utmost importance for us to control the environments we let our children be subjected to in their important formation stages.

We form routines revolved around family and home with direct intent and most are ready with the statistics and logical reasons for why we do what we do. It is something that we have based our lives around for in some instances over half of our times on this earth.

Issues Of Safety For Homeschoolers In Location Based Educational Settings

Not all instructors are vetted or have regular security clearance evaluations like technical Sgt. Michael Munyon. U.S. Air Force Photo by Charles Haymond

So, why would we after all this effort go out and put these same kids in relatively unknown environments with instructors and teachers having huge amounts of access to our kids? This may seem like an overstatement, but let me give you some shocking statistics.

First, and this is depressing, simply type this phrase into Google, “martial arts instructor molesting kids”. You will be utterly disgusted before you finish skimming the first page of results. These parents trusted these people, men and women.

You may say, these are isolated events. What about the abuse that happens at home? Doesn’t that speak to the opposite problem. Nope. This is a common misconception. Here is a statistic that will blow your mind.

Many were rightly appalled hearing about the cover-ups of sexual abuse of mostly male children by some Catholic priests over the past 50 years. These were men posing as virtuous role models and leaders. The Holy See finally came clean and named nearly 3000 priests that were under investigation over the past 5 decades. Keep this timeline in mind.

What most people have never heard is that according to S.E.S.A.M.E. advocacy group, in the New Your City Public schools alone, the number of sexual abuse cases involving teachers abusing minor aged students reaches around 1,000 per year. Not the City, the public school system alone.

Did you get that? Let’s put it another way. In three years, more kids are actually molested in one public school system than all the priests in all the dioceses around the world have simply been accused of abusing for the past 50 years.

None of this is excusable and even one child molested is insane.

Just listen to what a researcher from Hofstra University was quoted as saying to CBS News.

[T]hink the Catholic Church has a problem? The physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.

Charol Shakeshaft, Hofstra University

How careful do we have to be? How careful are we when we are allowing in person or what’s worse private interaction with our kids? Can someone abuse their position online as well as in person. Absolutely. Yet you have a wall of separation that only takes a button push to disconnect. There is no possibility of physical abuse.

There are no mandatory background checks for any of these Karate instructors. No FBI fingerprinting is required. They are small business owners of unknown history and affiliation.

I personally have gone through more state and national background checks, FBI fingerprinting, and sex abuse data base clearing procedures than any teacher, Karate instructor, or even State Department agent you will ever meet.

My wife Jackie was a teacher for decades. She will tell you the same thing. I have taught police, military from all branches and many countries, U.S. State Department agents and many more. Nearly all of them couldn’t believe the amount of background checks I have to undergo.

If you want to find out about how my homeschool online Karate classes work, click here to get all the details.

Socialization Concerns For Homeschooled Children

So why is it some homeschooling parents take their kids to locations? Some say it is for socialization. According to a study published in the Peabody Journal of Education, researchers assert that any view of homeschooled children that broadly labels them as deficient in social skills is simply, “not supported by empirical research.

I know from first hand experience. You can look at many of the articles that my wife and I write and see evidence in the stories we tell about our kids’ successes. We are convinced, along with many researchers of child development that homeschooling not only isn’t detrimental to a child’s socialization, it is superior in the benefits it can offer.

Kid’s learn through modeling, not lecturing. We used to know this in our university systems hundreds of years ago. Debate and immolation were the standards by which a college educated gentleman learned. Through the effects of the enlightenment and the ‘Berlin School’ in the late middle ages, this changed to lecture and regurgitation of approved information.

Children learn by example, and what example should they be modleing? Children that are around adults and supervised interactions with children find the role models needed to become like those adults. In public classroom settings, there are too many kids per teacher. The kids begin to immolate the habits of peers instead of adults.

This same thing may or may not happen in a martial arts class. I am also not saying that taking them to classes is a bad idea. What I am saying is that it is neither good nor bad.

The risk you take is not for any socialization based benefit. Research and experience says that homeschooled children are not only just fine, but are advantaged by having their environments and connections closely monitored.

Homeschool Martial Arts Classes With Little Ninja Online Home Dojo

If you would like to get your homeschooled Little Ninja involved in a character building, fun, and active online martial arts class, I have something you won’t want to miss out on. I have hundreds of students that I teach each week and your family can join in on all of the fun.

There are several benefits to having your kids train with me in my Online Home Dojo. These all relate directly to homeschoolers and have the same goals that many parents that choose that path hold.

First, let me show you what the class looks like. I have included a recorded class so you can see first hand how I deal with the kids. After watching some of this class, if you would like to find out more visit my information page for my Little Ninja Online Karate Classes.

These Online Homeschool Classes Are A Fraction Of The Cost.

Whether you are using a professional martial arts studio or a community based program, the classes always come with an overhead for the instructor. There is insurance, rent, association fees, utilities, equipment, advertising, and the list goes on and on.

The problem for you as a parent is that they pass these costs on to you as well as trying to make a profit. This can add up to high prices up front and many times hidden fees that come due later.

The fact is, just because the building is in a nice area, there are professional looking instructors, and there are trophies sitting around, it doesn’t mean anything in regards to the quality of instruction or the vetting of everyone involved.

My online classes are a fraction of the cost, you can attend every one of them each week if you choose, and I am the only instructor that will be teaching your kids. Other schools rotate low paid, part time instructors through classes often.

How can I do this? Simple. I have a fraction of the overhead that most on-site studios do. Sure I still carry insurance and some of the costs, but many of them I don’t have to deal with. Besides, I have always worked under the ideals of low cost classes with more students. This is the opposite route that some instructors take.

I have dealt with this issue extensively in another article. If you would like to know more about why martial arts usually costs so much, click here to read that article.

The Convenience Of Online Martial Arts Classes Is Undeniable.

It is not hard to see that having your kids in your own living or family room when they take a martial arts class is going to be much easier on all involved. You won’t have to drive the ‘mom taxi’ and no one has to sit in waiting rooms that may or may not have been properly cleaned.

I am not saying that some schools aren’t run well. I have run many schools. I am speaking from experience, it is hard to keep these places as clean as you are used to at home. Besides, at home you know whose germs you are dealing with.

If you are toting kids around all evening to these activities on-site, they lose out on quality time with family members that have to work away from the home. Cutting out the commute time is a huge benefit on its own.

Then there is the time getting all of the uniforms and gear packed up and ready to go. No matter how much you plan, kids will normally make this process harder that it has to be. In my classes I offer many options from full Gis for classes to t-shirts and belts.

It can’t be overstated how much time is worth for families. Give your Little Ninja the opportunity to gain from the benefits of the martial arts, but save your precious time.

You Control The Environment And Access For Your Little Ninjas

As stated above, the world is a scary place for the vulnerable. Kids are some of the most vulnerable in our society. We have a responsibility to protect them. It is arguably our greatest and most important job.

Controlling their environment has several components. There is giving them an atmosphere that they can explore their limits injury free. We must also control who has access to them, adults and kids. We must also consider the amount of time necessary to bring them to and from classes.

Despite the best efforts of instructors, they are not going to be able to control all students, parents, the environment, and your children in every class in a way that secures them and others.

Injuries are going to happen in a dojo setting. Some of the other children are going to have less disciplined households and I have personally had to throw people out of martial arts schools due to safety concerns.

There is also the consideration of driving usually in rush hour traffic or lunchtime rush to get your kids to these classes if they are onsite.

All of these are not a concern with my homeschool martial arts classes. If you would like more information on these classes check out my information page here. You will be giving your kids a gift that will pay off for years to come.

The Homeschool Martial Arts Online Takeaway…

A homeschool martial arts class should cater to homeschooling families. The instructor should have experience homeschooling and understand the concerns homeschool parents have.

The benefits of these types of classes over on-site martial arts lessons are numerous. You can control access to your kids. The environment doesn’t rely on someone else to keep it safe.

These classes are also pennies on the dollar when compared to other programs. In my program, there are Fun Fridays, multiple classes a day to choose from, and online testing days where family from around the world can tune in and watch.

If you would like to read more about how my Little Ninja classes and birthday parties can connect family and friends from all over the globe, click here to read more.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me and I will be happy to discuss options and give answers. Thank you for giving me your time and I hope to see your Little Ninjas in my homeschool martial arts classes soon.

Mathew Booe

Mathew Booe is a father of four, husband to Jackie since 1994, retired international competitor with over 50 wins, an international seminar instructor, a master instructor of hundreds of Little Ninjas each week, and the one bringing you the great content like you just read. Sign up for the newsletter to hear about his upcoming books before they are released to the public.

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