Is this a good reason to try homeschooling?

Question

My 9 year old hates school. He was fine in kindergarten and 1st grade. He always says he hates school. He goes to Jefferson Elementary in south Natomas. I see a bad trend starting here and don't want him ruined by the public school system with their rules, regulations, comforming ways, inflexibility, and wanting children to sit there all day and not get fidgity, all closed up in a hot room all day long. His teacher tells me every time he "does not do his work in class", among other things. I am seriously considering homeschooling him hoping this will give him more choices to learn what he wants to learn at his own pace. I think I can do it since I work part time. Are my reasons valid? He is great in math and reads well, he is good on the computers too and I thought online learning might be good for him. Please only serious replies respond. Thank you.

Thank you everyone for your heartfelt replies. Every suggestion was well thought out and appreciated. He has asked about homeschooling before and I plan to do more research before making a final decision.

Answer 1

Home-schooling is a very good option for any child. YOU are the one that can recognize his needs better than anyone else.

A good thing to do is to first decompress and let the bad influence of the group school sluff off --- in other words: Get out of the downward spiral and unschool for a couple of months. Take time to become reacquainted with each other in the parent/child relationship. Go to the park, the zoo, a museum, the beach, the mountains, the library. Bake cookies together, read together, ride bikes, go skateboarding. Find activities that are fun for both of you. Also, start up a few hobbies. Build model airplanes, paint fences, clean out the garage, watch educational videos.

After un-doing the mess that he was in --- start up with a simple outline of study.

Buy a good math text book and answer key. Make sure that he knows his math facts (via flashcards) before attempting the book. We use Saxon 54 as our starting text. If his reading is proficient he should be able to read the lesson and work out the equations with minimal assistance. The more he does on his own the more he will retain the material.

After a set amount of math is complete (30 equations or 1 lesson) he should write a simple essay ---- if he isn't ready for self-motivated essays he can do copy work from really good books. Copying writings of excellent authors teaches the child many things: handwriting practice, spelling, grammar, etc.

When the ONE page of writing is done he should read, read, and read. Find the best well written books available. Try to avoid fluffy stuff and give him the best. Allow him a minimum of 2 hours for reading --- if the books are interesting and worthwhile he will happily want to read for as long as he has the time.

His total study time should easily be 4-5 hours each day. You won't even have to push ---- if he does his math, writing and reading the hours will fly by in a hurry!!!

By doing this he will be learning at his own pace and will never have any question such as, "What am I supposed to do today???".

Every day will be similar in structure but will be different and interesting with new material for every step. Each math lesson adds to the one before, and each written page is new and unique, and each chapter of every book will take him on adventures of fiction and also into great books that are non-fiction.

We use the Robinson Curriculum for our core material.

I love homeschooling!!!

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Any reason that will benefit your child & your relationship with your child is valid enough to try homeschool. It will NOT hurt & you just might find that it is better for both of you. I am an only child who had an only child & we constantly were in & out of private & public schools & home school fit just right until the child got lonely & wanted to be around other children. That lasted about a month until someone bullied, then we went back to home school. I don't regret any of it because my child now is almost 30 & has found a carreer that fits like a glove. It may have taken longer, but at least my child is happy & this makes me happy! Be aware that people will try & talk you out of it. I wish you all the best & enjoy the time you have with your child & make every minute a learning moment rather than having it shoved into meaningless hours in a hot classroom doing nothing but daydreaming of getting out to a better place. Envolve you child in all aspects of your day & you can't go wrong!

Answer 4

I think homeschooling is an excellent way to help children grow, learn, and develop, but you want to make sure you're finding the problem and fixing it before just yanking the child out of public schools. There could be a hearing/vision problem that's affecting his attention.

Why don't you sit down with him every day for a week after school and watch him do his homework? Don't help him, unless he truly needs help. See if he can sit still for the entire time and focus on his work. Then check over the work with him and see how well he did. There's a chance that if that goes well, it might honestly be the environment is overly-stimulating for him.

Have you thought about sitting down with him and asking him why he's having trouble in his classes? You never know, hopefully he can be completely honest with you and let you know what's going on.

I really am a proponent of homeschooling as long as the parent(s) make a very strong effort to keep the child going to socially-stimulating environments and make sure the kids have friends. Public school was the worst thing that happened to me (I started out in private schooling), and I know there are people that think homeschooling is damaging to children, but it's not. Some people are suited to public schools and some are not. Everyone is different; our society is just horribly rigid about giving children an awful public school style education.

If I were you, I would research other parent's homeschool experiences online. There are tons of homeschooling sites out there. Make the decision for your son's future & education. It's good to hear people's opinions and advice, but you're the only one that can make this decision.

Answer 5

The sad truth is that most public schools are designed for the 'average' student. Over-achievers and under-achievers are often left behind. Overachievers sit around waiting for the class to catch up, underachievers flounder, unless they are so far behind they have to be taken out for remedial classes.
If he is interested in home schooling, and willing to work on his own (it is more difficult than regular schooling because you are responsible for learning the ENTIRE content of the course. Too often in public schools, students can slip by learning only a small percentage of the material, because when the hands go up to answer a question, only one person actually answers it. The rest may or may not have the correct answer, and may never know why their answer was different.
The only concern is that you work part time. You can't leave a nine year old at home on his own, and expect him to get through his work unassisted. There are on-line tutors, but he still needs an adult in the house.
The big plus about home schooling is that he will advance at his own pace and instead of having to wait for the rest of the class, when he finishes one assignment he can move on to the next. My grandchildren discovered that they had far more 'free' time than their conventionally-schooled neighbors, simply because they didn't have to waste time. They studied, completed their work in the morning and were free for other activities in the afternoon. Now that they are attending college, they already have great study habits and are in the top 10%, so for them, at least, home schooling really worked.
Good luck to you and your son.

Answer 6

This is a challenge. I understand you're desire to remove him from what's causing him pain, but there is NO guarantee he will do the required work for you, either. My (gifted) son was halfway through 2nd grade when we withdrew him from the public schools (his K and 1st grade teachers were AWESOME!) His (2nd grade) teacher was continually telling me that he wouldn't fill in the blanks on the papers she passed out. I said that he probably knew the answers, but didn't want to waste his time filling in the blanks. I suggested she question him verbally and fill in the blanks herself. This, she said, was not a viable option as she couldn't give one of her students preferential treatment (I guess if she had a main-streamed, learning-disabled student, she wouldn't give them "preferential treatment" either!) She warned me that by homeschooling my son, I would get no different results.

At first, she was right, but looking back I realize that was mainly MY fault - I should have given him time to 'decompress', and I made our homeschool like public school only at home (strict schedules, etc). Now that we're almost four years removed (and I've relaxed our schooling greatly), he has told me over and over he does NOT EVER want to go back to public school.

He likes the fact that he can have all his schoolwork done by lunch, and, while his friends are still sitting in a classroom, he can be playing computer games or watching TV or reading a book (whatever HE chooses). Of course, I have REALLY played up this part to him. If you do start homeschoooling, start with just one subject, then quietly add another in a month or so until you have all the subjects you want to cover. On average, homeschooled children graduate high school a full four GRADES ahead of their peers, so starting slowly should not negatively impact the end result - a well-educated child.

BTW - I knew all along, but have now proved, that my son is gifted. He would be in 6th grade this year and is making mostly As in his 9th grade math text and has scored at or near the 90th %-ile on his annual standardized tests (without teaching to the test, as public schools so often do).

Best wishes.

Answer 7

My son had a home-based education last year. He was eleven and in the sixth grade.

I had planned all kinds of great, fun things to do. Well, my son was totally ungrateful. He had no appreciation of how life had been made easy for him. He whined about anything he didn't want to do. I screamed because I saw my son throwing away his future and I didn't want to spend my time and energy watching someone mess up. Well my will prevailed for half of it and his did for the other half. He made quite a few gains and his test scores improved. He got four awards, some he earned and some I felt I earned. I decided that public school was the only option for him for this year. He took the ACT (like SAT) for public school placement and got the same score as our district's graduating seniors. A year's worth of misery really did benefit him educationally.

What really helped was to find third-party tutors who would educate him. He was allowed by our state to join after school math and writing clubs, the library had two free programs and I hired two tutors. He was signed up online for Johns-Hopkins math.

What it seemed like to me was that my son wasn't going to be happy no matter what he did unless he got to play video games all day. I even let him sleep in as long as he did the work and that didn't make him happy because he had a later school day rather than no school at all. He just couldn't get school to go away.

He was allowed to pick a special area of learning such as computer game programming. He even gave that up. My friend who had my son's number predicted that while he likes playing the games, he wasn't going to find the programming of games very exciting. He went through the entire year without identifying any other educational interests.

Because he didn't apply himself, we continued with the schooling all summer. He finally passed everything except grammar which we are still doing.

This year I pulled my daughter from school because the writing program was not strong and she ended up three grades apart in her learning. She never expressed unhappiness with the education she was receiving and homeschooling has turned out to be just fine so far. She has no attitude problems.

Answer 8

Homeschooling is an option, but might not be the best. Is there a private or alternative school in your area that might run differently than your local public school system? If you pull him out of school because he "hates" it it might give him the wrong idea about "school". Also the reason why he hates school could be because of something else. He could have anxiety towards something,...classmates, the teacher, something that will not change by pulling him out of public school. Have you had him tested or checked out by a doctor? It could be something as simple as needing classes or something like attention deficit disorder. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there is something wrong with your son, but simple things like not being able to see the chalkboard can cause students to act very differently. I'd say if you definately do not want to leave him in that school, look into other schools like Montessori or other forms of alternative schools that have different rules and do things alot differently. I hope things work out.

Answer 9

It sounds like it may be a good thing for both of you. Look into Charter or on-line schools that offer support for you and your son. If they are public charter schools, they should be free. It takes a little work to get started homeschooling, but once you get going it is easier. Do what is right for you. Public Schools are not right for everyone.

Answer 10

Sounds like you made up your mind about homeschooling. Only you know your son and what is best for him. Here are some tips on getting started. It is a great site. Good luck. Sounds like your son needs a different environment. Sometimes public schools can ruin children. Get a head start so he can enjoy learning. Good luck.