why do you homeschool?

[danjoealexis3006]

B/C our son has a LD and was not getting his needs met. We started in 5th and he is now going into 8th grade and doing well. I pulled my youngest last year for many reasons but mostly because I think it is a better way to learn for OUR family. I wish I would have done it many years ago!

Why do you want to know? Are you thinking of giving it a try?

 

[My2CrazyGirls]

OP here. Thank you so much for the replies. I am generally curious of the reasons people decided to take the step to homeschool. We are not planning on homeschooling now, but may consider it down the road.

My daughter (going into 2nd grade) has Aspergers. In a nutshell she is very intelligent, very inflexible, defiant, has some anxiety, sensory issues, and social issues. The public school here is excellent and so far so good. However I am concerned about how things will be in the future. Kids can be down right mean starting in 3rd/4th grade. They have been fine and tolerant of my daughters issues so far (she is so inflexible, she has to do things a certain way, has to play things a certain way, so you can imagine how hard it would be to keep friends when you act like this). I am afraid she will end up getting bullied, and I do not want school to end up being a miserable experience.

Unfortunately I don't feel like homeschooling would go so well (at this point). She tends to do better listening to anyone other than my husband and I. We have some little summer work books to do and she refuses to do any of them. She can be down right defiant. We have her in play therapy and are constantly trying to increase her flexibility but have not been successful. If something does not come very easy to her, she just shuts down and says she can't do it. It is so frustrating for us.

There are special schools that work with children like her, but they cost 30K a year (budget related aspect to this thread) and we simply cannot afford that.

I also worry that she really listens to what other kids say. A child will say the most ridiculous thing and she will come home and tell me about it, and she thinks it is true. I will tell her that the child was making it up and she doesn't believe me. I am scared to think of what information she will be getting from kids as she gets older. I cannot protect her from everything, but because she does have this disability, I am extra worried. She is not "street smart."

Thanks for listening. Any thoughts on how homeschooling would go with a child who has behavior issues and doesn't listen to her parents????? And trust me, we are working very hard on these issues.

 

[Granny square]

Yes..it is 'just parenting'... Island Girl details some of the things she's doing specifically for her kiddos needs.....whether academic in nature or otherwise,that IS 'just parenting'...... the 'just' is definitely sarcastic quotes from me..... all of it is 'just' parenting,but some of our parenting whether hs or not is targeted at education.....

Lol if I would have done someething with my kids regardless of their enrollment status I didn't count it as curriculum. Nor do I see teaching a preschooler who wants to do abc's as homeschooling. It is just doing what parents do.

Island girl you have a different situation than most. I wouldn't waste time with school in your circumstance. Good luck!!!

 

[ORMom2Four]

I did used to know someone who took the plunge with her DH and moved to an extremely rural past of Louisiana from Massachusetts (she was able to telecommute and just fly into her job once a month). She drove with their teenage son to the local high school in August, visited the school, saw the curriculm and came home with tears in her eyes. She and their DS decided they would home school. This was about 10-12 years ago, and they'd never thought of themselves as homeschoolers before this. But as she told her DH "I can't do that to him. I just can't. And we can't afford boarding school, so what are our other options?" (I know the school in question as I had some college friends who were from that HS, and there's no way I'd send my kid there. Seriously. It's a mean, segregated, low-achieving little school.)

Her son did quite well, almost exclusively working on his own, and was accepted, a whole year early, to the same MA state college that she and her DH had graduated from, so it worked out just fine.

OTOH, I know someone who was in a similar situation in rural Louisiana and who had a child she'd been told by the school district was "special needs" and probably just below the cut off for Asperger's at a well-regarded school in the North before they moved. She found a great country school district composed of a bunch of poor, rural Louisiana kids. She and her DH nearly decided to homeschool based on everything, but sucked in their breath and tried it out.

That "special needs, almost Asperger's" kid today? Yeah, he's an Eagle scout with a 4.0 who tests at the top of the nation-wide achievement tests and has a big pack of friends. She puts it all on a school district and a community that care about their kids in a deep and real way - even though they don't have a lot of money - and is sooo glad she and her DH didn't decide to home school because his attendance at this little, accepting school was what he really needed to blossom.

As someone who doesn't have kids, I've objectively seen it go both ways to two very similar families. From the evidence, I think homeschooling is best in some circumstances and sending kids off to school is best in some circumstances.

This really struck me. DS7 is barely reading and writing. He's at an early kindergarten level. The district said he MUST have ADD or have a learning disability. At the test results meeting in May, they told me that he scored very high on the tests, and was very close to testing into the talented and gifted program! My kiddo has an IQ higher than most other 7 year olds, but is not learning in a traditional school (and we are in one of the top school districts in Oregon!)

We are seriously considering not sending him back to school this fall......it's become more like babysitting than school.

 

[DisneyCrazyX5]

We do things a little different here, in that our DD8 goes to public school, but we also "after-school homeschool" nights and weekends.

Our local school system (which we adore) just lost gifted and talented funding. So rather than advance our daughter to the grade level she is working at academically, we decided that we would supplement her classical learning with more advanced areas here at home. So far she is loving it, and we can really see the difference it is making by having her feel more "normal" among her peers.

We have a wonderful group of parent volunteers and we all take turns doing pull-out gifted programs throughout the week (Junior Great Books, Competitive Math League, etc.) so that the teachers can teach the grade level fundamentals to the majority of the class and those children that have mastered the material aren't board. It certainly isn't a perfect solution, but it is working well for us.

Good luck to everyone struggling with the decision to home-school. So much of it depends on the personality of both the children and the parents as well.

this is kind of what I do. My boys are luck to go to a very small excellently rated local school. But due to the small size I supplement their learning at home with lots of freedom to try new things, 4-H, art activities and having the help with our small farm. All three of them are gifted and have also been able to attend local gifted camp in the summer. If we live somewhere else I would seriously consider homeschooling, but since I also work at their school - I was the gifted teacher last year, we get the best of both.

 

[justakrazymom]

I am curious, what are your main reasons for homeschooling?

Live in an are w a bad school system?
Special needs child?
Live on a farm?
Religious reasons?

We homeschool because we want to educated the whole child. We pulled our oldest out at the end of 6th grade because I was spending hours every night re-teaching him. I knew I could do it better if I was just the teacher. We had zero intention of HSing the other 3..until we learned more and knew institutionalized education was not what we wanted for our kids.

We are not super religious, we don't live on a farm, no special needs. My kids are average kids.. in fact most people have no idea they are HS'd until we tell them.

 

[DVCisME]

I have a child with Aspergers, also. I would not homeschool duee to the need for social interaction. If there is a homeschooling group in your area, maybe.

If your child is having a difficult time, stress to the scchool the need for social interaction. I was told that my child if more difficult with me becaus ethe child is comfortable. I imagine that is why you are having some of the same issues. As my child gets older, I see some of the issues I was worried about diminishing. I too worry about bullying and such, but my child goes to school with some people whom have forged a relationship and would help. I feel the best line of defense is to be an active parent in the school and/or classroom. Let the kids see you and know you, I believe that always makes them think twice.

Best of luck in whatever way you choose.

 

[Karlzmom]

You know as I read this I am thinking of a someone I know.....

Four kids, all homeschooled and have never gone to public school.

THis fall in HIGH SCHOOL two of them have to start public school the other two are in elemementary school so hopefully it will be easier.

And the reason.... we will be EXTREMELY lucky if mom lives to Christmas. In other words there won't be anyone to home school and she doesn't have the energy to do it this year.


These kids are having such a rough transition. I wonder if the decision not to do school was the right one in light of this. Hindsight is wonderful so I just put this out for parents to think about as they make the decision.. what happens if something happens to the "teacher"

I'm confused, are you saying that it was wrong to have given the kids more time with mom before she passes, because it would be tougher on them than if they had spend the time with a variety of temprorary teachers [having to make new attachments on a yearly basis, assuming that none of the teachers left within a year?]

To the OP, we homeschool our youngest child, and will be participating in a national university model school this year.

Our older children have had a variety of public and private school experiences. Our decision to homeschool was multi-dimensional, and is not easily defined beyond it feels right.

CA has been a a steady trek to make public education more about directing social attitudes than to create literate self-directed learners for quite some time. Its all about teaching to the test and indoctrinating liberal social values. So, there is a religious component to our decision as well the desire to provide an education that included the "extras" that are not available in today's schools...."fluff" like art, music, history and a foreign language [DS will be starting on Latin this year, as a 1st grader].

One thing that always bothered me about our previous school experience was the amount of "family time" that gets co-opted by the schools to manage homework, projects, reading, etc. I found with my son that is now in college that I spent nearly as much time working with him each day as we do homeschooling! Supposedly, I was to provide my values training and relationship building in "our" time, but "our" time was primarily devoted to reinforcing the school's values and genrally doing school on "our" time such that by the time we had dinner, showers, packed lunches, etc. "our" time was pretty much non-existent. Add in the not so subtle push to label our values as "narrow minded" or old-fashioned...(after all, we are only the parents, what do we know?) Funny, we are main-line protestant and would consider ourselves fairly middle of road, but are apparently some kind of radicals...who knew? We did know we could do better for our youngest.... After all, how much worse could we do than the "average" outcome from the public schools? LOL. Turns out that our DS is thriving....maybe Mom does know best I didn't really consider private schools this time around, as it just wasnt' a good fit for us. We wanted more flexibility in DS's education than what even a private school could provide.

Are you considering homeschooling or just curious as to why others homeschool? The book cited above is a great read, if you are looking for information to help make a critical assessment of the public school movement.

 

[Mom2apirate&princess]

Homeschooling was never on my radar when ds started school. If I would have known about it and realized that there was a large community around us doing it I probably would have done it myself. But I'll be honest and say that the reason would have been that I just wanted him home with me. We were overseas when dd started school, the school was great and she learned so much. My kids were taking field trips to Venice!

They will be starting 9th and 5th grade this year and I offered to homeschool them because we just moved to a new area. They both declined. But if they wanted it or if we are unhappy with the new schools we would definitely revisit the idea.

 

[sfarmbo]

This really struck me. DS7 is barely reading and writing. He's at an early kindergarten level. The district said he MUST have ADD or have a learning disability. At the test results meeting in May, they told me that he scored very high on the tests, and was very close to testing into the talented and gifted program! My kiddo has an IQ higher than most other 7 year olds, but is not learning in a traditional school (and we are in one of the top school districts in Oregon!)

We are seriously considering not sending him back to school this fall......it's become more like babysitting than school.

@Ormom2four, have you looked into online schools (aka virtual schools). We do connections with a 7th grader (13 yr old), a 5-6th grader (9 yr old) in talented and gifted classes (he is 2 years ahead in math and 1 year in all other classes), and a 2nd grader (7 yrs old) with ADHD and ODD. The 9 yr old has been with connections since k. He finished 2 grades in 1 year. The local public school would not allow him to advance, so we went with connections. They school at home, at their own speed, but we are held accountable by teachers. If 1 subject is easier they can advance faster. If they are struggling with something we can take our time. Some kids just do better at home, to much pressure at school.

 

[TEK224]

How do you handle extra curricular type activities when home schooling?
Do your kids join local sports teams or cultural programs? Just wondering how that plays into homeschooling and the social aspect for kids.
Especially if a child is an excellent athlete and interested in earning college athletic scholarship. Is that not an option since they are homeschooled and not part of a scholastic sports team?

 

[Lilliputian]

We just love homeschooling, and I can't imagine not doing it. I have hundreds of reasons and would be hard pressed to prioritize them.

We are Christians, and we do believe that the Bible says that we're supposed to teach our children about God around the clock (per Deuteronomy 6:6-7). That's a lot easier to accomplish when we're spending large amounts of time with our children. That is our primary reason for homeschooling.

But after that, there are so many reasons, and even if the first one didn't exist, the others are still important enough to us to continue. I love being able to tailor-fit my children's educations. When I was in school, I learned faster than average. Some of the teachers would give me supplemental work, but it was after I did the main lessons. So when I was in the second grade, I'd do my second grade math, and then my teacher would give me third grade math sheets for me to do in my spare time. By the time the year was done, I'd learned all of third grade math and probably far beyond that, but the next year, I had to do third grade math all over again.

I want my children to grow up to be diligent workers, and one way I hope to instill that trait in them is by taking time seriously. Having them sit around and wait for other children to get done, or teaching them the same thing over and over, or pushing them to learn the next concept when they haven't mastered the first isn't the best use of time. They can obviously overcome that, as many people do (I hope I have!), but I'd rather them have free time to develop other areas of interest.

I really don't think about other schooling options when I consider how I home educate. What I mean by that is that I don't compare what I'm doing to what public or private schools are doing. I'm not thinking about how conventional schools are horrible, or about how I need to do everything "better." We just do the next thing. My two school-aged children are likely currently "ahead" of the norm, but that's just how they've learned so far. If they ever hit a road block, or if my younger children end up learning more slowly, we'll just do things at the pace that suits them.

And the reason.... we will be EXTREMELY lucky if mom lives to Christmas. In other words there won't be anyone to home school and she doesn't have the energy to do it this year.

This is incredibly sad for this family. We have thought about what would happen if something were to happen to me, and we've made back-up plans so that our children would continue to be able to be homeschooled. However, for children who do have to go to school, I don't see why it would be harder for a high schooler to adjust than a 5 year old. We raise our children to be more capable of adapting as they age. Yes, there'd be a learning curve that other children would have already gotten past, but that learning curve gets smaller as the child gets older. It's nothing compared to the adjustments they'll have to make after losing their mother.

 

[chris31997]

OP here. Thank you so much for the replies. I am generally curious of the reasons people decided to take the step to homeschool. We are not planning on homeschooling now, but may consider it down the road.

My daughter (going into 2nd grade) has Aspergers. In a nutshell she is very intelligent, very inflexible, defiant, has some anxiety, sensory issues, and social issues. The public school here is excellent and so far so good. However I am concerned about how things will be in the future. Kids can be down right mean starting in 3rd/4th grade. They have been fine and tolerant of my daughters issues so far (she is so inflexible, she has to do things a certain way, has to play things a certain way, so you can imagine how hard it would be to keep friends when you act like this). I am afraid she will end up getting bullied, and I do not want school to end up being a miserable experience.

Unfortunately I don't feel like homeschooling would go so well (at this point). She tends to do better listening to anyone other than my husband and I. We have some little summer work books to do and she refuses to do any of them. She can be down right defiant. We have her in play therapy and are constantly trying to increase her flexibility but have not been successful. If something does not come very easy to her, she just shuts down and says she can't do it. It is so frustrating for us.

There are special schools that work with children like her, but they cost 30K a year (budget related aspect to this thread) and we simply cannot afford that.

I also worry that she really listens to what other kids say. A child will say the most ridiculous thing and she will come home and tell me about it, and she thinks it is true. I will tell her that the child was making it up and she doesn't believe me. I am scared to think of what information she will be getting from kids as she gets older. I cannot protect her from everything, but because she does have this disability, I am extra worried. She is not "street smart."

Thanks for listening. Any thoughts on how homeschooling would go with a child who has behavior issues and doesn't listen to her parents????? And trust me, we are working very hard on these issues.

I am not in your situation. But I know several families who have homeschooled their children that had special needs. For them they had to teach class on idioms, cat got your tongue. Classes on personal hygiene, personal space. They enlisted our help to help them. We would reinforce the lessons. The class were on a very basic level until the child understood and more complex concepts were added. It might have taken them 2 yrs to do 4th grade instead of 1 yr. Sometimes, they would skip History, science and stuff like that just to teach their child indepenace. Or do those class every other year.

Socialization came about by being out in the community, field trip, shopping, friends, church, boy/girl scouts, and the homeschool group. They would be out doing something almost everyday and would work one one thing at a time.

For me, I had to train our DD that when I said it was time for school, I was no longer mom but teacher. It took about a month. For you maybe a little longer.

I would recommend you find a homeschool group in your area and go talk to them. See what they do in the year, can they help you? Most groups are very open and very friendly.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

 

[chris31997]

How do you handle extra curricular type activities when home schooling?
Do your kids join local sports teams or cultural programs? Just wondering how that plays into homeschooling and the social aspect for kids.
Especially if a child is an excellent athlete and interested in earning college athletic scholarship. Is that not an option since they are homeschooled and not part of a scholastic sports team?

It depends on the area you are in. Some areas will let you particapte in school sports, some homeschool cops are big enough to have team sports. Kinda depnds on what your child is into. My DD is into ballet, DS is in soccer and whatever right now. He is only 6.

 

[Nayan]

How do you handle extra curricular type activities when home schooling?
Do your kids join local sports teams or cultural programs? Just wondering how that plays into homeschooling and the social aspect for kids.
Especially if a child is an excellent athlete and interested in earning college athletic scholarship. Is that not an option since they are homeschooled and not part of a scholastic sports team?

Where I live there's so many activities available we were hardly ever home! Between baseball, bowling, soccer, football, archery...the list goes on. He wanted to do them all, but settled on bowling which he loves. There are opportunities for scholarships out there and not for just sports. You have to do a bit of legwork and look for them but they're there.

 

[justakrazymom]

How do you handle extra curricular type activities when home schooling?
Do your kids join local sports teams or cultural programs? Just wondering how that plays into homeschooling and the social aspect for kids.
Especially if a child is an excellent athlete and interested in earning college athletic scholarship. Is that not an option since they are homeschooled and not part of a scholastic sports team?

My oldest wrestled during his high school years..for the local High School.. they are allowed.

My younger 3 each play 2-3 sports each thru various local venues and once they are of high school age can try out and play for the local high school should they choose.

not being in a classroom for 8-9 hours a day in no way means homeschooled kids are not social. If anything my kids do more than there traditionally educated friends because they have much more "free" time. We own a local dance school so all my kids take dance, plus sports, plus various other activities. All things we would attempt if they had gone to traditional school but no doubt they would not be able to do as much because homework and other school activities would eat away at their time.

 

[penel3]

This will be our first year homeschooling.....ahhhhhhhhh!!! I am nervous but truly believe we have made the right choice. My DS is 12 and finished 6th grade making honor roll all four quarters.....BUT he never brought home a passing math exam all fourth quarter!! OMG! She gave him so much credit for doing his homework every night that it bumped his final grade into the 80's! Seriously!? Then during his state reading exam he went down 15 points from the fall! But made honors in language arts! He moved from having an IEP to a 504 mid-semester. He has begged me to homeschool him since he was in kindergarten, but I always said no, ugh! I see the dangers of keeping him in the system now, at least in my district. So we are taking the plunge and I am scared but so excited to get to spend this precious time with him now!

 

[superme80]

We just love homeschooling, and I can't imagine not doing it. I have hundreds of reasons and would be hard pressed to prioritize them.

We are Christians, and we do believe that the Bible says that we're supposed to teach our children about God around the clock (per Deuteronomy 6:6-7). That's a lot easier to accomplish when we're spending large amounts of time with our children. That is our primary reason for homeschooling.

But after that, there are so many reasons, and even if the first one didn't exist, the others are still important enough to us to continue. I love being able to tailor-fit my children's educations. When I was in school, I learned faster than average. Some of the teachers would give me supplemental work, but it was after I did the main lessons. So when I was in the second grade, I'd do my second grade math, and then my teacher would give me third grade math sheets for me to do in my spare time. By the time the year was done, I'd learned all of third grade math and probably far beyond that, but the next year, I had to do third grade math all over again.

I want my children to grow up to be diligent workers, and one way I hope to instill that trait in them is by taking time seriously. Having them sit around and wait for other children to get done, or teaching them the same thing over and over, or pushing them to learn the next concept when they haven't mastered the first isn't the best use of time. They can obviously overcome that, as many people do (I hope I have!), but I'd rather them have free time to develop other areas of interest.

I really don't think about other schooling options when I consider how I home educate. What I mean by that is that I don't compare what I'm doing to what public or private schools are doing. I'm not thinking about how conventional schools are horrible, or about how I need to do everything "better." We just do the next thing. My two school-aged children are likely currently "ahead" of the norm, but that's just how they've learned so far. If they ever hit a road block, or if my younger children end up learning more slowly, we'll just do things at the pace that suits them.

You pretty much stated all of my reasons. My kids are still young, but I have been gearing up for preschool this summer. We are blessed to go to a chuch with a huge homeschool support. Once my kids start first grade any free time I may have is gone.

This will be our first year homeschooling.....ahhhhhhhhh!!! I am nervous but truly believe we have made the right choice. My DS is 12 and finished 6th grade making honor roll all four quarters.....BUT he never brought home a passing math exam all fourth quarter!! OMG! She gave him so much credit for doing his homework every night that it bumped his final grade into the 80's! Seriously!? Then during his state reading exam he went down 15 points from the fall! But made honors in language arts! He moved from having an IEP to a 504 mid-semester. He has begged me to homeschool him since he was in kindergarten, but I always said no, ugh! I see the dangers of keeping him in the system now, at least in my district. So we are taking the plunge and I am scared but so excited to get to spend this precious time with him now!

Good luck! My mom homeschooled my sister and I in high school. My sister had many learning problems, but my mom was able to work with her and get her up tp speed. Her first year my mom just caught her up with basic math. The second year when I joined we did Algebra. My sister only had some problems when we got to Algebra 2 the next year. My mom had never taken an Algebra class in her life, but learned for us.

 

[Svhadden]

Regarding socialization and extra-curricular activities, like many others have said, we've had to scale DOWN on the amount of time we spend participating in these options. We have an incredible co-op, a huge community of church-based homeschool groups, and lots of sports teams/leagues that are independent of the school system. It became overwhelming at one point and we had to limit our outside activities to two field trips/month, and one extra activity (karate/jiu jitsu 2 days per week).

It's so funny to me that one of the first thing ppl ask when they learn that we homeschool is, "Yes, but what about SOCIALIZATION???" Like our kids are living in a cave, doing school by torchlight , isolated from other humans . Most of the homeschooled kids we know are very well socialized, because they are, in fact, socialized within their family. Not to be ugly, but I don't want my kids socialized solely by a group of their peers (Lord of the Flies, anyone ). Our kids are socialized by actually living a real life. Sitting in a classroom 8 hours a day is not socialization. Going with me to the bank, grocery, other errands, interacting with other adults and kids in the real world...that's socialization. I don't get how ppl think running between classes in the halls of a school building is "socialization."

 

[Nayan]

Regarding socialization and extra-curricular activities, like many others have said, we've had to scale DOWN on the amount of time we spend participating in these options. We have an incredible co-op, a huge community of church-based homeschool groups, and lots of sports teams/leagues that are independent of the school system. It became overwhelming at one point and we had to limit our outside activities to two field trips/month, and one extra activity (karate/jiu jitsu 2 days per week).

It's so funny to me that one of the first thing ppl ask when they learn that we homeschool is, "Yes, but what about SOCIALIZATION???" Like our kids are living in a cave, doing school by torchlight , isolated from other humans . Most of the homeschooled kids we know are very well socialized, because they are, in fact, socialized within their family. Not to be ugly, but I don't want my kids socialized solely by a group of their peers (Lord of the Flies, anyone ). Our kids are socialized by actually living a real life. Sitting in a classroom 8 hours a day is not socialization. Going with me to the bank, grocery, other errands, interacting with other adults and kids in the real world...that's socialization. I don't get how ppl think running between classes in the halls of a school building is "socialization."

A cave I love it! I always get asked this myself and my response is to ask them if either they or their spouse works and at their place of employment are they all segregated by age, meaning do the 20 year olds ONLY work with other 20 year olds? Do the 30 year olds only work with other 30 year olds? They answer 'of course not' and then I ask them then why should kids only be allowed to socialize with their own ages? Usually stumps them .