why do you homeschool?

[sullins5]

Here's our view and why we homeschool/homeschooled.

Our first 2 were in a private christian academically strong school up until they would have been going into the 5th and 6th. They were both in gifted programs. What we found, and what bothered us, was we felt like WE were teaching them when they came home. For whatever reasons, they hadn't had time to go over things, and we found an attitude of "Well, if you don't like it, you can leave". We also felt like 'school' was taking our kids away. We didn't have children for 'society' to raise them. We wanted them to be strong, thriving, know what you believe and why, be excited to learn, be able to travel, have a worldview, walk with integrity, and NOT be consumed with peer pressure, entitlement attitudes, or have to worry about what their 'peers' thought.

I was a "I'll NEVER homeschool" person. Never say never! We brought them home (they were fine with it), and homeschooled them the whole way through. They played soccer, violin, piano, were Zoo docents, built Habitat for Humanity Homes, and travelled profusely. They have been to Mexico, Poland, China, Dominican Republic, Virgin Islands, and want to go where ever they can help.

Here's what we found. We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that our kids grew up with minds of their own, sure of themselves, strong, sure, and have 'socially' developed wonderfully! I now am the proud parent of two kids who both won full scholarships, and my son won his Masters' program as well. My daughter was preadmitted to nursing school, didn't have to compete, could stand her ground when a professor made an illogical comment, and is now a cardiac/neuro ICU nurse. My son also won his college program (both were academic scholarships), majored in business with a concentration in administration, management, and mandarin and now works for an international company as an account executive. He finished his Masters' at 23years old. I AM very proud of these two.

And...here we go again. They have a 12 year old sibling. We sent her back to the same school, she was in the gifted program, but after repeating and seeing what we had seen before, plus this time, the teachers were on Facebook much of the day (I kid you not), we just decided it wasn't worth it. Still not impressed in what I was seeing all around. She loves to act, sing and dance and is pursuing her dreams as well as studying diligently. We'll see what her future holds, but for now, she's homeschooling.

Homeschooling is NOT for everyone. We love having ours around, love that they have our morals, convictions, have more time with them and now feel like we raised two and are raising the third. I tell my friends, "If you're going to homeschool, please do it RIGHT". Find out what's right for your family, private, public, homeschool and diligently do it.

Another note...I have quite a few friends who DO teach in the public and private sector and they are fine! So please understand, our family made our decision based on OUR kids, THEIR needs, and OUR wishes. HTH's!

 

[shalom]

My main reason for homeschooling is that I thought school was a prison and didn't see any reason my kids needed to be incarcerated. I did fine in school, was in the honor society in high school and all that rot, but I always felt it was more about keeping kids out of real life than about learning. The fact that they tried to get me to retake a class when I switched school systems in high school because I had taken them in "the wrong year" just reinforced that theory.

Plus hubby and my brother were both bullied all through school (Asperger traits), and we could see the boys were headed in the same direction. But I think the most important thing for my husband was that he likes to spend time with the kids -- when they were younger he worked around their homeschool gym or art class or whatever hours so he could go with them, and we did a lot of evening stuff together, too.

If my daughter who is "company" with her ballet school were in public school, we wouldn't see much of her during the school year -- she'd be at either school or ballet most hours of every day but Friday (school, but no ballet) or Sunday. Five days of ballet classes every week, and then rehearsals on top of that much of the year. I don't know how parents of public-schooled kids stand it; at least we get her in the mornings and for lunch!

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.

Our kids do this, and all I've ever figured out to do is to just insist it will be done, and they don't get to do anything else until it is done. Works better if there are other things the kid wants to do. Plus you have to be sure they really understand what needs to be done, which for us means we chop the assignment down to infinitesimal bits and have them do things piece by piece. At some point their refusal to try that particular step strikes even the child as ridiculous.

It is a challenge to "out stubborn" a kid on the spectrum, but I suspect I would have been diagnosed with Asperger's myself, if it had been around when I was a kid, so I guess I have a good stubborn streak to work with.

It can also help sometimes if you can "get out of the way" and let the child wrestle with it on their own with the help of a system that works for them. My one daughter who "couldn't" do math when she was younger has made major strides with khan academy and is now dabbling with pre calc and thinking about being making a career of math somehow.

How do you handle extra curricular type activities when home schooling?
Do your kids join local sports teams or cultural programs?

My older kids all did baseball (can't remember if youngest did or not) every summer for a while, and some of them did soccer as well. There's a homeschool soccer team around here somewhere, but my one "team sports" kid does ballet and had to give up all the rest. And there's always judo or tae kwon do or some other athletic thing with evening meetings, which some of my kids have done/are doing. Team sports are more dependent on the local school system, obviously, but there are always options.

Tons of cultural programs around here, usually more than we have time for. Although admittedly that's part of why we moved here; I'm sure it varies from location to location.

Homeschooling varies considerable from family to family -- some parents do programs that are pretty much the same set up as regular school, although usually they can do it faster because they don't have to do all the administrative stuff. Other parents "unschool," which is a very informal, real life approach. Most of the people I know do some combination, where some classes are more formally taught and others more casual.

Last year I had kids doing classes on the internet that were self-paced, more formal weekly art classes in town, ditto music classes, and one kid took a course from a friend of mine who is an M.D. and was teaching science to kids from three or four families (including some of her own, obviously). Another one is thinking about taking her Biology class this fall. The art, music and science classes were about what you'd experience in a formal school setting; the internet ones structured more like you'd get with a tutor, and the ones I personally taught more like a small college class, where everyone is expected to read and discuss and write papers but it's more discussion based than lecture based.

Unschooling actually works pretty well if mom and dad raise their own bees, do a lot of woodworking, build computers, or are otherwise actively doing a lot of stuff around and with the kids. And most of the unschoolers I know expect their kids to get a job or start going to college/taking formal classes when they're still young enough they've got mom and dad there to help them fill any "holes" in their knowledge base. Unschooling families tend to believe that learning is a lifelong process, not something you do in school, and unschoolled kids tend to know how to find the information they haven't picked up -- they learn how to learn, if you will.

Which is totally not for everyone -- but the advantage of homeschooling is that you can tailor the program to the child much more easily than a public school can.

 

[littleelf]

We don't homeschool--not really an option financially at this point--but I'm curious about all the people who've said they don't want their kids in school 8-9 hours a day. Do your districts really have days that long? All the schools I know of (upstate NY) are more like 6-7 hours. Unless you're including a couple hours of after-school activities or sports?

One thing that might push me more toward the homeschooling if it were an option--the early morning starts. Why do high schools start at 7 am? I know lots of teens who have to get up at 5. Don't they read the research about how teens need their sleep and are not well-adapted to early mornings? It sounds like I'm being a grumpy night owl but I think it's really an issue.

I like the idea of supplemental home-schooling to replace budget-cut gifted programs. Something to think about.

 

[chris31997]

We don't homeschool--not really an option financially at this point--but I'm curious about all the people who've said they don't want their kids in school 8-9 hours a day. Do your districts really have days that long? All the schools I know of (upstate NY) are more like 6-7 hours. Unless you're including a couple hours of after-school activities or sports?

One thing that might push me more toward the homeschooling if it were an option--the early morning starts. Why do high schools start at 7 am? I know lots of teens who have to get up at 5. Don't they read the research about how teens need their sleep and are not well-adapted to early mornings? It sounds like I'm being a grumpy night owl but I think it's really an issue.

I like the idea of supplemental home-schooling to replace budget-cut gifted programs. Something to think about.

Not to pick a fight with you at least when I was in school in FLA we were in school for 8hrs IF we took an extra class instead of 6 it was 7 classes. Which if we were going to college than they highly recommended we do that. You are right, not all school are in session that long. In HI, EVERY Wendsday was a half day. All kids were only in school till noon. That was after getting there after 8am for elementary age kids. Really how much school did you get done on those days

 

[HHSTigerFan]

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?

I am guessing most people on this thread won't want to hear this...

But kids that are home schooled and not allowed to play at the local high school are greatly reducing their chances of getting athletic scholarships except in the rarest of cases, the competition they are competing against isn't good enough to help them improve and be seen by college coaches..

We had a kid a few years ago that approached us about playing basketball as a junior, mom claimed the kid was scoring 38 pts a game with some sort of homeschool team.. so he spent the summer with us with the plan of enrolling in the fall at school.. only problem was the kid was a terrible basketball player, we had a pretty average team and there was no way he would have made our 12 man roster..

 

[goodfood4ursoul]

I wanted more for my son than to learn how to take a test.

I wanted him to question things, just not go blindly, accept them and move on.

I wanted him to have the freedom to learn at his own pace and if he got stuck on something we could take the time to study it, practice it and understand it.

And probably a whole slew of other reasons I can't come up with right now.

YES!
Those were our reasons too.
I am going to share my experience, which includes public school and home schooling.

We have two kids, DD and DS.
They began school in public school for K - 4 for DD and K - 1 for DS.
We home schooled DD from 5 - 9th grades and DS from 2nd - 7th grades.

It's just my personal experience that kindergarten is good for kids for many reasons. I do not regret my kids' K experiences in public school.

I have seen how beneficial kindergarten is for some kids, a niece specifically,
who was a hard-to-please, tantrum-thrower, somewhat spoiled and self-centered 5 year old when the year began, yet came out of kindergarten a calm, well-adjusted, sweet and delightful 6 year old.
There's just something about having to follow the rules and learn to cooperate with others through experience that helps some kids grow and develop.

That being said, the years we home schooled were the best years ever on many levels- learning, exploring, family time, developing relationships, and extra-curriculars.

It doesn't hurt to be able to travel to WDW during the less-traveled season for price breaks and less crowds, either

We were diligent in our home school, we had a daily schedule, etc.
We loved Saxon Math and Shurley English and Lyrical Life Science and Joy Hakim's A History of US
Learning was so much fun!
We were also very involved at church, and they also played baseball and soccer a few years.
We took tons of field trips to places like Williamsburg, The Smithsonian in DC, Appomattox. Both our kids are history nuts.

The kids were highly involved in local 4-H programs (yes, we live on a farm) and were able to use life science lessons on a completely different level than their peers.
They bred, raised and showed Boer meat goats both locally and at the state fair.
Kidding, (birth, not jokes ) nursing, hoof care, giving shots and worming and castrating: yep- we learned about it all through experience.
They raised chickens, and we also had a large garden.
They went to 4-H camp every summer(as campers, then later as counselors), and State 4-H Congress too as they got older.
They have served in a multitude of leadership roles throughout the years.

"4-H is a community of young people across America who are learning leadership, citizenship and life skills"
I encourage everyone I know to learn more about 4-H because it is family friendly and "learning by doing" is their focus, which works well with home schooling.

The transition back into public education was a good one.
Because of the economy it was financially necessary for me to go back to work, and for them to go to school.
And when I say financially necessary, I don't mean in order to keep cable tv or to pay the payment on a fancy car or any of those things. We still don't have satellite or cable or smart phones or i phones or ipads and we drive well-used cars.
It was go back to work or lose the farm.
But it's all good
Re: the transition- there were a few surprises relating to DDs peers and their moral choices.
I seem to recall her being very upset as her peers discussed which of their divorced parents would be the one to ask for help if they needed an abortion.
We were glad for the opportunity to discuss these things with DD while she was still at home, instead of having her face these issues for the first time when away at college.

DD spent 3 years at our local high school, graduated with 20 college credits and was active in the NHS.
While in college she was able to get a job teaching Small Animal Science (goats, sheep, cows, chickens, and rabbit care) at the 4-H Educational Center. Now she works for an investment company in public relations.

DS spent a year at the middle school and 4 years in high school, ran XC, graduated with an associate's degree (we have dual enrollment offered in our high school) and is enjoying college.
He loves college, loves his profs, his friends, his classes, the campus.
He has only 3 more semesters until he's done with his BA in International Relations.
He works in the summer as assistant camp director for a local Christian camp.
He'll be turning 19 in a 15 days... where did time go?

In his first year in college, he wrote a paper that had to contain his Christian testimony, and one of the things he wrote about was being home schooled.
He claims that 75% of everything he knows he learned while being home schooled.
I find that staggering,considering he left high school with 50% of college behind him already.
My point in saying that is that we, as parents,
don't always realize the full impact that our time educating our children has on them in the long term.
One thing I know- we are our kids' parents.
Nobody else has the responsibility for them as we do.
The buck stops here.
Home schooling has given us the opportunity to teach them,
and also given us the time for them to develop their character and values
and build a foundation for everything else that has come since then.

Each parent has to do what is right for their own kids,
and what is right for their family, but home schooling?
It's one of the best things you can do.

And parents, if you are home schooling for religious reasons, (among others)
let me recommend Liberty University for you and your child to consider
as a place to learn and grow mentally, spiritually, academically, physically, and socially, while in college.
www.liberty.edu

“From the beginning, the goal was not to create another bible college. The vision was to create academic excellence, world-class facilities, NCAA Division I athletics, and student activities, and to provide it all with a distinctively Christian environment. ”

— Jerry Falwell, Jr.
Chancellor and President

 

[DawnM]

I can see that and honestly, if my child were interested in going to school to play a sport he/she showed an aptitude for and gave me this reason, I would strongly consider sending him to school.

I am not anti-PS at all. We are just doing what is working for us at this time.

I am guessing most people on this thread won't want to hear this...

But kids that are home schooled and not allowed to play at the local high school are greatly reducing their chances of getting athletic scholarships except in the rarest of cases, the competition they are competing against isn't good enough to help them improve and be seen by college coaches..

We had a kid a few years ago that approached us about playing basketball as a junior, mom claimed the kid was scoring 38 pts a game with some sort of homeschool team.. so he spent the summer with us with the plan of enrolling in the fall at school.. only problem was the kid was a terrible basketball player, we had a pretty average team and there was no way he would have made our 12 man roster..

 

[shalom]

Don't they read the research about how teens need their sleep and are not well-adapted to early mornings? It sounds like I'm being a grumpy night owl but I think it's really an issue.

I don't think you're being grumpy at all -- I think the studies showing that teens do better in schools with reasonable hours are pretty solid. But I'm admittedly easy to convince because you could totally sketch out my brother's schedule by his grades -- he did terrible in the first class of the day, regardless of subject, and got better as the day went on. And he'd come home and take naps, too, it wasn't straight-up lack of sleep but the hours that were killing him.

 

[TinkPirateMom]

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.

Have you looked into ABA therapy and social skills classes in your area? Insurance sometimes even covers the ABA therapy for several hours a week. In your case, I'm not sure homeschooling would be the answer. In a way it could reinforce the maladaptive behavior particularly if you and your husband are inclined to give into these behaviors (not saying you are). It's a difficult decision to make and a difficult situation to be in. I wish you the best.

 

[Dopey420]

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.

Home schooled students may not participate in sports in our district. Insurance issues. I couldn't imagine my kids not being able to participate in wrestling, track, dance team, etc. They would be miserable. And they would not be exposed to as many people who are different. For example, my son is working with the handicapped students at his school this year and he is so excited.

 

[Dopey420]

Some parents are just flat not qualified to be a teacher. My wife is a public school teacher, so she is qualified but I have a friend who home schools and she absolutely is not qualified! We will see what happens when time for college. There are no jobs out there, so I am very afraid of what will happen to some of these home schoolers that I know.

 

[Granny square]

Some parents are just flat not qualified to be a teacher. My wife is a public school teacher, so she is qualified but I have a friend who home schools and she absolutely is not qualified! We will see what happens when time for college. There are no jobs out there, so I am very afraid of what will happen to some of these home schoolers that I know.

The school's records aren't exactly great even wiith those "qualified " teachers. Illiteracy isrampant. So let's not act like an education degree means there are any guarantees. I've a friend with her little ged whose children have /had full scholarships to mit and brown. So I wouldn't go writing off people who don't qualify in your eyes. We've already seen what the schools are pouring into the job pool.

 

[Nayan]

The school's records aren't exactly great even wiith those "qualified " teachers. Illiteracy isrampant. So let's not act like an education degree means there are any guarantees. I've a friend with her little ged whose children have /had full scholarships to mit and brown. So I wouldn't go writing off people who don't qualify in your eyes. We've already seen what the schools are pouring into the job pool.

This is the sad truth about the education system today. Teachers have a hard job, no doubt about it but with so many demands placed on them it's hard to even imagine them getting any learning done. Top it off with standardized testing, which is tied to money and it's a recipe for disaster. My neighbor's daughter comes over twice a week for help with reading from my son. She reads at a 3rd grade level and is a senior in high school. How did that happen .

 

[burnurcomputer]

I feel/have felt that my 2 that are in school would blossom in a non traditional school setting. I still am fighting with my DH and Mom to see what i see with my sons. It kills me to have such resistance toward homeschooling in my home. I do not feel qualified to be my childs teacher, but I feel that they would do so much better with a cyber program that would allow them to work on the grade level of each subject.

I wish that I were in the postion to have support from family about this, and am very happy for those of you who can do this with full support.

 

[deegack]

This is the sad truth about the education system today. Teachers have a hard job, no doubt about it but with so many demands placed on them it's hard to even imagine them getting any learning done. Top it off with standardized testing, which is tied to money and it's a recipe for disaster. My neighbor's daughter comes over twice a week for help with reading from my son. She reads at a 3rd grade level and is a senior in high school. How did that happen .

Undiagnosed learning disability, lazy kid, uninvolved parents, parents who don't believe their kid has a learning disability etc etc.

I have a nephew who is in 7th grade and reads at a second grade level. He is severely dyslexic and had ADHD so it's very difficult for him to read but he had top grades in math and science.

 

[sillylily]

We have two different takes on it. My oldest DD15 is in PS, and does very well. My DD12 is homeschooling with me. The oldest can absorb material at a ridiculously fast pace, so not much slows her down. My youngest struggles with speed, and learns at a much slower pace. Last year was so nerve wracking for her that she twisted her hair (nervous habit) until nearly bald in three places. Trying to keep pace with a harried teacher who was a nervous wreck herself was too much for her. So, she will not be returning. The public school learning model is good for some kids, horrible for others.

 

[mks18412]

Some parents are just flat not qualified to be a teacher. My wife is a public school teacher, so she is qualified but I have a friend who home schools and she absolutely is not qualified! We will see what happens when time for college. There are no jobs out there, so I am very afraid of what will happen to some of these home schoolers that I know.

I know some teachers that I would not even let them babysit my kids. Degree or no degree it makes no difference to me....

 

[shalom]

I couldn't imagine my kids not being able to participate in wrestling, track, dance team, etc.

None of my siblings or I did any of that, nor did four out of the five in hubby's family, and we were all in public schools. Not everyone cares about team sports.

You make a valid point that resources do vary considerable from place to place; we knew when the kids were little we'd be homeschooling and definitely considered that before settling where we were, but I recognize not everyone has the opportunity to move. OTOH, non-homeschoolers don't necessarily know what's available, even in their own hometown. If you don't need it, you're not very motivated to look for it.

And they would not be exposed to as many people who are different.

I laugh because one of my kids' best pals is public schooled (she's sitting in the living room hanging out even as I type), and she has been lecturing them about every other week for years about how "different" they are. She's constantly shocked by anything that doesn't fit with the way kids are at her school. You'd think she'd be used to us by now, since she's known us for probably a decade.

Unless you keep them in a cave, homeschooled kids can't help but be exposed to people who are different. Homeschooled kids aren't segregated by age or overall ability, so they meet differently abled kids in art classes and reading discussion groups or in other situations where the other child's handicap doesn't hold them back. They meet them as just another class mate rather than as someone to help, granted, but they still meet them.

For that matter, public schools don't have a lock on helping the handicapped -- if I felt it necessary, my kids could do it through any number of other organizations in town. Most of my kids volunteer without my encouragement, so I haven't tried to convince them they need to do anything in particular, but I've helped them look for a specific type of volunteer opportunity ("working with animals"), and heaven knows there are plenty of volunteering options out there!

 

[HHSTigerFan]

In my dealings with homeschooled kids, mostly thru youth sports, feel so bad for them as their parents keep them locked up in a bubble and then not allowing them to play competitive high school athletics.. Have to admit it, I just don't understand it, really that afraid of letting the kids be around other kids their age?

 

[DawnM]

And I would love to see a poll on the Dis asking how many of us adults played competitive sports in high school.

Not all kids have a desire or an aptitude to play sports.

And nope, no fear of my kids getting to be with other kids, none at all. I don't know where you get your info, but it is not accurate.

In my dealings with homeschooled kids, mostly thru youth sports, feel so bad for them as their parents keep them locked up in a bubble and then not allowing them to play competitive high school athletics.. Have to admit it, I just don't understand it, really that afraid of letting the kids be around other kids their age?