Homeschoolers?

[insanekittym]

Anyone out there homeschool?

[Extensa5420]

I have never been home-schooled before. However, I have studied at home for my public school classes. Does that count?

[anime$star]

Some kids are home school because they are stars etc dont know umm lol or because they are being bullied or teased

[unalisaa]

I often stay home from school, if that's what you mean.

[AnnaIME]

Sometimes, when something happens to my son in school, I consider homeschooling. My son has Asperger's syndrome, and little incidients happen from time to time. The pros would be that he would be safe from bullies of all ages. The cons... are so many. I would be stuck at home. He would loose the daily interaction with other children that he sorely needs. He has to learn to get along with all kinds of people, nice and other. He would only get input from me, and not learn from teachers trained in their different subjects.

And then there's the small detail that it's not really allowed where I live.

[PharaohHound]

I did not spend one day in school, homeschooled all the way, baby! :D I loved it. My dad was a high-school teacher, so I got to do organic chemistry when I was nine years old and Shakespeare when I was 11. I wouldn't have made it in public school, I was (and still am to some extent) very introverted and sometimes painfully shy. Not to mention highly noise-sensitive. And, listening to someone talk at me is precisely the worst possible way of learning for me.

It's not the same social experience as school, that's for sure. And for me it was a good fit, I like people, but I need alone time too. Lots of my homeschooled friends ended up going to high-school because they wanted the social aspects of it. But homeschooling does not make one and island. I had a great circle of homeschooled friends, and I was never lonely. :) It's all about networking, finding good homeschooling organizations. A lot of them are crazy religious, which we definitely are not, so it's hard to find secular groups and curriculum. But there are certainly non-religious homeschoolers out there.

[missy harries]

I did not spend one day in school, homeschooled all the way, baby! :D I loved it. My dad was a high-school teacher, so I got to do organic chemistry when I was nine years old and Shakespeare when I was 11. I wouldn't have made it in public school, I was (and still am to some extent) very introverted and sometimes painfully shy. Not to mention highly noise-sensitive. And, listening to someone talk at me is precisely the worst possible way of learning for me.

Hmmm, do you think you may be so introverted and painfully shy because you were homeschooled? Mabey if you were exposed to in school social settings it would have helped you deal with social situations better.
(This coming from an introvert who feels incredibly arkward about socializing with most and I did want to be home schooled, but it does make one wonder).

[PharaohHound]

Hmmm, do you think you may be so introverted and painfully shy because you were homeschooled? Mabey if you were exposed to in school social settings it would have helped you deal with social situations better.
(This coming from an introvert who feels incredibly arkward about socializing with most and I did want to be home schooled, but it does make one wonder).

Honestly, the shyness was a phase. I grew out of it on my own. And I still had to work through it as a homeschooler, we sometimes went to very large homeschool groups where I didn't know many people, and I usually did fine.

Homeschooling certainly isn't perfect, and it isn't for everyone, but I feel it did me more good than harm.

[vicarious70]

I homeschool my 2 children through a k12 virtual academy online school which I've been doing for the past 7 years. My daughter who is in 7th grade now wants try out a brick and mortar school so I'll be sending her next year. My son on the other hand who is in the 5th grade wants to continue homeschooling. I've enjoyed being a learning coach and teaching my kids. The cirriculum is so advanced. There's stuff that I don't remember learning at the grade levels their in.We also have the support of teachers by being in a virtual academy so you have the same accountablity as all schools. And you also have oppurtunities to meet other families that are doing the same thing by networking, outings, and field trips etc. Yes homeschooling isn't for everyone but if you have a child that is struggling this is the best way to go.

[Sparklycookie]

I would have given ANYTHING to be homeschooled- secondary school was awful!

[GigaRevival]

Well, I'm *technically* homeschool'ing right now as I switched to all online courses for my degree (in College).

It's pretty nice, except it has made me even lazier than I was before; which I didn't think was possible.

[Cyjon]

Sometimes, when something happens to my son in school, I consider homeschooling. My son has Asperger's syndrome, and little incidients happen from time to time. The pros would be that he would be safe from bullies of all ages. The cons... are so many. I would be stuck at home. He would loose the daily interaction with other children that he sorely needs. He has to learn to get along with all kinds of people, nice and other. He would only get input from me, and not learn from teachers trained in their different subjects.

That is a wonderful perspective on the issue. I see so many parents of disabled kids who home school because they are afraid of what might happen in public school, and don't look at the entire picture.

My niece, Maria, has many severe disabilities. The running joke in the family is how lucky Helen Keller was because she was only blind and deaf. *pfft* That's easy! We were leery about public school because we weren't sure they could handle her, and we were worried about the other kids. However school has been great for her and she's really blossomed. The teachers and staff bend over backwards to accommodate her, and not just because it's the law. The other kids love her.

Of course she's only 7. As she gets older, her differences will become more pronounced. Yes, I think she'll probably get bullied, but I also believe for every kid who teases her, there will be ten kids standing up for her.

I think the most important reason we keep Maria in public school is what she teaches everyone else. Her teachers will be better educators. The school will be better equipped to handle disabled kids in the future. Her fellow students will grow up to be more open minded and less judgmental of people who are different.

Of course the whole home schooling thing is a very personal decision. Regardless of the laws, a lot of schools DON'T accommodate these kids; we've been very lucky. And some disabilities make accommodation all but impossible. I certainly encourage any parent of a disabled child to at least try public school, but there is no one answer.

[Sunbee]

I home school, and I was home schooled myself. Why? Academics. The public schools aren't capable of providing an appropriate education for kids who are high ability in one or two areas and average in others. What are they supposed to do, bus an elementary student to the high school just for a math class? Bring in a tutor for that one child? Ideally, they would, but they don't. It's easier for the parent of a child with disabilities to get what their child needs than a parent of a child with a high ability because of our laws. Not easy, but easier.
Home schooling takes a lot less daily time than public school. We eliminate the transport time, the waiting for the rest of the class time, etc. It takes three to four hours a day, with children who by age would be second and third grade. We move at the pace of the child. If a child doesn't understand something we go over it until they do. We school year around, which means no one forgets math, languages, etc, over vacation. I do get a fair amount of 'It's not fair that we don't get a summer break!", and I remember giving my parents the exact same line as a kid, but education works better that way.
I don't feel stuck at home--we're out nearly every day, doing various activities, going to the library, museums, the pool, music lessons, etc. My kids interact regularly with other children, both of their ages and other ages. Swim team for my oldest starts in a week, the others are taking lessons and working towards being good enough swimmers to join the team.
As a home schooled child, I never wanted to go to public school. I didn't share interests with other children my ages: they were interested in tv shows, I was interested in history, genetics and astrophysics. I couldn't talk to my age peers. (It was worse when we got to be teens, and all the girls were interested in makeup and boys while the boys were interested in girls and sports.) I liked socializing with adults, and particularly with my dad's scientist peers, most of whom did not regularly interact with people younger than their PhD students and who tended to talk to me like they did to their students. I see some of the same things with my children, but mine are more likely to play physical sorts of games like tag, and I was never inclined that way, even though my parents made an effort to keep me involved in athletic activities. I do tend to be rather non-social as an adult, but I still have trouble finding people with shared interests. The internet has been a plus in that aspect of things.

[simonem]

I've homeschooled my boys since they were in second grade, both have disabilities and they caught every disease that passed through the class so I had to pull them out. It's not easy but sometimes you just have no choice. I did send my younger son with Aspergers to the first year of high school after I got sick myself, but had to take him out again as he just couldn't cope.

I do find the social aspect difficult, but that's because of their problems, not the homeschooling itself. If you can manage to get them a circle of friends there really is no downside to it apart from making you lose your own sanity at times!

[SuicidiaParasidia]

no, but if my parents had home schooled me, it wouldve saved the public schools the hassle of tracking me down regularly...

[iCad]

I wasn't homeschooled myself, but I homeschooled both my kids at least for a time. For one thing, when I was married we moved around a lot, because of mine and my husband's careers, both of which were/are in music. (I am a classical musician; he was and still is, although we're no longer married, a record producer.) We regularly commuted between New York City, Los Angeles, a bit of London, and Nashville as our careers required, usually spending a few weeks or months at a time in each, so regular school wasn't at all practical for my son, since he of course came with us whenever we shifted locale.

When my son was 12, which was years after my husband left me while I was pregnant with our daughter and I had settled in one place but was still homeschooling, he decided that he wanted to go to public school with all of the friends he'd made. (Seriously, I don't understand why people think that homeschooled kids automatically miss out on social stuff and don't have friends, especially if they live in a neighborhood where there are always kids around, especially once school is out. It's not like homeschooled kids never leave their house, for pity's sake. :lol: Plus, sometimes homeschool families will pool their resources and form associations and such, often teaching "classes" communally, generally to take advantage of the individual parents' strengths as well as to compensate for their weaknesses. There's such an association in my area, since many people in my area homeschool.) Anyway, my son wanted to experience the school thing, and he ended up liking it better than staying home. He wasn't an academic star, since academics were never his thing; he's hampered by inheriting his father's fairly severe dyslexia which was and is difficult to compensate for and especially affected his ability to do math. Plus, he was just never interested in academic/geeky pursuits. But he really enjoyed being on sports teams and such, excelling at basketball. He graduated this past school year and he'll be going into the Army soon.

My daughter...I messed her up, I'm afraid. :lol: She was born very prematurely, and I didn't send her to regular school because I feared that the medical needs she had especially as a young child wouldn't be met. It was probably a totally irrational fear on my part...but I had it, nonetheless. So, she stayed home. And unfortunately, she inherited voracious geekiness from me. So, she had learned to read by the time she was three and was generally very advanced, scholastically, because she had one-on-one attention from me, another voracious geek. But, a few years back, she decided she wanted to see how every other kid lived and asked to go to school. Unfortunately, the school wouldn't place her where she should have been, academically, but rather where her age placed her. So, she was completely bored, "learning" things that she'd learned years before, when she was five or six. And, for her, the social stuff wasn't all it was cracked up to be. She had plenty of friends her age and plenty of social experiences via the homeschool group, and although she enjoyed being in the school band (She's a flautist), she was already a member of the youth symphony that was run through a local college. So, I took her out of school again. Now, she's 14 and she's basically just killing time until next year, when she can take the ACT test and the results will be acceptable proof, according to our state's laws, of having learned enough to have officially finished her education. In the meantime, she's doing a lot of indulging her passion for cooking and baking, as well as tending her garden and her bees and doing music stuff. She's also taking some writing classes at the local extension of one of our state's community colleges, since she has an interest in writing professionally.

Generally, homeschooling isn't for everyone, either on the parent end OR on the kid end. But it is a viable alternative for some kids/parents. I think it is especially viable for exceptional children, those who don't fit into the bell curve on either end of the spectrum. The American public school system was designed for kids in the bell curve. It had to be; it's the only way to have a system that suits a majority of millions of kids. But it often isn't adequate for kids ahead of or behind the curve for whatever reason.

Like Sunbee, when I was really schooling them (as opposed to not-really-schooling, like the phase my daughter's in now), we schooled all year, generally taking two two-or-three-week breaks, one for the Christmas season and one during the last week of June and the first week of July. I was flexible when their non-homeschool kids were out of school for the summer, though, so that they could do normal kid summer-vacation stuff with their friends, like going to the park for a day or going into town to see a movie or to hang out at the mall or whatever. They learned faster schooling year-round, and they didn't forget anything they learned that way. And yeah, school only had to be conducted for about three or four hours a day. Usually, I did an early morning session and a mid-afternoon session, with a long recreation/lunch break between the two. (Unless we were going to group that day, which generally had the same schedule as a regular school day.) I made sure that they were finished around 3PM, so they could play with their regular-school friends when they got home from school. And, of course, they never had homework like non-homeschool kids, so their evenings were entirely free for pursuing their own interests or just vegging out Simming, in my daughter's case. :lol:

[Muñeca Rota]

Unfortunately, here in Spain Homeschooling is forbidden.
But it's not illegal so some parents try to do at their own risk. My husband and me talk about this sometimes. If someday we have a child, we'll try.
Spanish school is a great lie. Childs are forced to learn in a politic manipulation way that depends on the city where the school is placed. A real shame.