what are your thoughts/feelings about homeschooling/home educated children?

Question

do you think it's good, bad, otherwise? if you have direct experience with it, please include that.

my brother's friend said there are 2 kinds of home-educated kids. Homeschoolers (the socially-inept) and home schooled people (the ones who are normal) comments on this?? I've found it pretty true with those that I know.

my siblings and i are home educated. and according to my brother's friend, we are the home schooled type, not the homeschooler type.

Answer 1

I have been homeschooled for 5 years now and I will graduate this spring. My mom runs a homeschooling group in our area with over 100 families so I get to meet a lot of homeschooled kids. I am really good friends with some of them. With my experience though I have noticed that some homeschooled kids are a little on the odd side. Usually the whole family is odd. I don't think that it has anything to do with homeschooling though. I have met a lot of odd kids who are not homeschooled. Personally I love homeschooling because I love the freedom of setting my own schedule. I am enrolled in a homeschool program so I still have to send a lot of stuff in to be graded. I consider myself to be normal but I also went to school for 8 years before I was homeschooled.

Answer 2

Well, my kids are homeschooled--I think great things about them. :)

I think homeschooling is a great idea if the parents are willing to truly commit themselves to making it work. And if it's a fairly decent home environment. Not all homeschooling families have that and the kids are the ones who end up suffering.

Most of the homeschooled children I know are absolutely great kids. They tend to be more mature for their age, sociable, respectful, etc. than their public schooled counterparts. I really saw this for myself when on a field trip with homeschooled kids and we run into public schooled kids who are also on a field trip, or even at a birthday party in a public venue. The difference is truly striking. Actually, the most striking difference was attending a birthday party with a mix of homeschooled and public schooled kids...

This is not to say that every homeschooled kids turns out great. Some have deeper issues that would be present regardless of where their schooling takes place. Some are in almost neglectful--or the opposite, over-bearing--homes. But on the whole, homeschooled kids here where I live are in great families and are great kids.

Answer 3

I think there are a few factors.

The number one and seemingly obvious important thing is that an adult must be involved. My husband had trouble in school, so his mom pulled him out in 5th grade. Then she got a full-time job. You know, you really can't blame a 12-year-old for getting up after noon and playing video games instead of doing schoolwork if no one is there to tell him no. He eventually got his GED and has a great career now, but basically his "homeschooling" was just "parental aided dropping out".

Not only does someone need to be there, someone must be fairly good at the teaching part. I could not do it. I know of some people who can and are/have, but several of them were educatioon majors in college.

There should also be some alternative ways for the kids to be around other kids. I understand and sympathize with parents who want to keep their kids away from what has become a very scary world, but let's face it, those kids will eventually HAVE to learn how to interact well with others. Involvement in youth group or local homeschooling organizations are good ideas for getting kids socializing.

I think the reasons and the choice to homeschool should be evaluated yearly, or at least several times over the course of the homeschooling. If the kid isn't picking up on stuff, you have to honestly ask yourself if that's the best learning environment for him or her.

I won't homeschool my kids, but I don't automatically judge others who do.

Answer 4

I do home school my 3 children. They went to public school for the first few years. But I found that it is easier to home school because i can give them one on one attention. They excel more and are all up higher grades then state standards.
For the socialization I joined a co-op in my town. Other home schooled children go and they offer classes and time to socialize. They take sign language, art, drama, chorus, P.E, home ec, and they also offer tutors for algebra and Spanish.
Some parents don't really educate the children the way the should but that is the parents fault and the children will suffer from this.
But alot of parents do a wonderful job and their children really do great.
A friend in the co-op has home-schooled all her children, her oldest son is in medical school now and her other son is a white house corespondent. So they can do great if taught well.

Answer 5

I have been homeschooling my sons for the past 2 years. The oldest of the two graduated this past May. My youngest has this year and one more before he graduates. I don't really see any difference in the way my son learn other than the fact that I am the one that is doing the teaching. We have a schedule that is followed everyday. He has P.E. time along with a lunch break. We ever go on field trips. The public school that he was attending no longer takes the student on field trips.

Answer 6

I have homeschooled my daughter for the past two years. The first year was very tough. She had had several bad expereinces in her public school that left her with zero self confidence in both her ability to learn and her ability to make friends. Luckily, she hadmade four very good friends in our neighborhood, two of whom were already homeschooled, so she was able to concentrate on spending time with them. After a year, she was more comfortable around larger groups of kids she didn't know and is now a social butterfly. Scholastically, her school work went from below grade level to a grade level beyond where she should be in all areas but math. We did discover she has a learnin disability in the form of a processing disorder that would make traditional classes very hard for her even under the best of circumstances, so homeschooling is, at least for now, the best choice.

I think it is important to rememeber that there are as many reasons for homeschooling as there are homeschoolers, but many times parents felt their child was not getting the educational attention the child needed and there are often social issues as well. People zero in on the social aspect of homeschooling (or, in some opinons, the lack of). However, socialization is not taught is school and, in fact, there are many kids in school who simply don't "mix" with the others. We all know the child in the class who spends time on his or her ownor onl has one friend. Many times, school becomes a battle ground for these kids who simply are not able to melt into the crowd and are often picked on because of it. We all know adults who still don't do well in crowds or with new people..and more often than not they were all in traditional schools. The reason it would seem that more homeschooled kids have issues than ones in public schools would be 1) homeschooling is a far smaller base group and 2) many parents choose to homeschool because they feel their child isn't getting the healthy, positive social interaction they need.

My experience has been that homeschooling parents put just s much effort into the social aspects as the edcational. Many homeschoolers in fact have a more active social and extracurricular life becuase they can be far more flexable in their schedule. That is not to say there are some homeschooled children who are isolated, either by parental choice, location or other issues. But that has little to do with the choice to homeschool but more to do with the parent and those facotrs would remain no matter where the child went to school.

Homeschooling takes a lot of dedication, effort and work on the parent's part. I have seen children thrive under the individualized attention and ability to work at their own pace and I have seen kids who's parents hand them a stack of worksheets and then head off to work, leaving the child to be responsible for himself. Like most home school parents, I have days that are good (organized lessons, work done in our "class", no excuses) and I have bad days (putting aside the work to head out to the mall or museum, a day off for no reason). ANd that is another beauty of homeschooling...we can miss a day or two or three,,,,and then make up the work over the weekend without our child "falling behind".

As I write this, my daughter has been given the option to return to school, in a new district, to a facility with a strong drama arts component (her passion). She refuses...she wants to stay homeschooled, at least for the rest of the year. She knows the choice is hers.

Answer 7

I think your brother's friend is a basher.
There are two that I love dearly, they are my children.
My feelings toward all other homeschool kids are the same as my feelings for all kids in general:

There is good and bad everywhere, those two terms do not exclusively belong to one group or the other

Each person is fearfully and wonderfully made and is deserving of our respect and support.

Answer 8

Our family has homeschooled our children for the past 14 years. We began at first out of sheer desparation, because we were living in an area of the country that was dead last in the list of states, in a county where most of the schools were under probation. We could no longer afford a private school, once our two oldest children finished elementary school, and we knew the public schools were not going to cut it. We didn't begin because we were a family of dedicated religious conservatives, or because we wanted to somehow insulate our children from the world at large. As a matter of fact, we couldn't if we wanted to- we are a military family, so we frequently move all over the world. Our eldest two children were given the choice of returning to a public school for high school, and did so. Our eldest son attended one year, and returned home to finish his last 1 1/2 years and graduated through the homeschool program we use. His older sister decided to finish through the public school and graduated. The third child attended one year, for 2nd grade, at the same time- and was bored and hated the entire experience. So she returned to homeschooling along with her brother. The remaining three children have never attended public school at all. Given that we move every 2-3 years, and never know what kind of school system will be in our new location, it is easier for the children if we continue homeschooling as we always have. We use a program designed for homeschool, with the backup of an actual school and teachers if we need assistance. We can and do alter it to meet our needs, but the basic bones of the program are still there. So I know they are recieving a good education, on par with the best public or private schools.
We get the old socialization question all the time, though it is mostly from people who are either completely unfamiliar with homeschooling or have already decided they are against it. Most homeschooled children are involved in some sort of extracurricular activities, and have plenty of opportunity to socialize with others. I don't think public or private schools can lay a claim to being the sole or best source of teaching social skills- being as classes are divided according to age and grade level, with very limited interaction between grades/ages. What you have are artificial ponds, where all the fish are of the same level of development, and capable of teaching as many bad behaviors as good. Besides, the job of any school is to teach academics, not morals or social skills. That is the the responsibility of the parents. It may come as a surprise to many, but children are sent to school to learn, not socialize. Socialization is incidental to the schooling, not the purpose of it. The teacher is not there to be the social director, nor to entertain the students. The teacher is there to teach, and presumably the students are there to learn. That we confuse the matter is the reason so many students and schools are in trouble academically.
The other thing we get asked a lot is how we can provide the variety of subjects that can be offered in public/private schools. The answer is that we can, quite well, and usually just as easily. It is extremely easy to obtain supplies and materials to teach just about any subject you want to teach, and it gets easier with each passing year. When I first started, homeschooling was still fairly rare. We had to go to a teacher supply store for extra materials. The internet was just taking off, really. Now we can have lectures via internet, take tests online, and download more information than we know what to do with sometimes. Want to find some obscure text? What to see a disection on a frog before you cut yours? Google it. We have a chemistry set with all the chemicals you need, in small quantities yes- but adequate for our needs. And we do experiments my chemistry teacher never even mentioned in class. We have a microscope that is connected to the computer, as well as a regular one that is a 1200 zoom. Geography? No problem. Google Earth will take you anywhere you care to go. My kids have access to the world, and all the information in it. Our schoolroom is equipped with two computers, online, plus a laptop. We are probably at least as well prepared as some of the best schools, and probably better than some schools in poorer districts.
There are some bad examples of homeschooling, to be sure. Just as there are sterling examples of public or private schooling to be found. There isn't a one size fits all system out there that works 100% of the time with 100% of the children. If the time comes I find a system which will educate my children better than what I provide now, I will be the first in line to sign them up. For my children, right now, homeschool is best.
One of the best analogies I've seen on the subject was to compare schooling choices to buying bread. Some folks out there are really into bread. They grind their own grain, mix it up and bake it at home. Some folks are picky about their bread, and they go by the bakery to pick up their loaf. And then there are folks who are just plain busy, or maybe aren't bakers by nature. They stop in the bread aisle and pick up a loaf of presliced packaged bread. Now the whole point of all that bread is to make a wholesome sandwich to fill your belly. In the end, that's all that is really important, isn't it? If the main point is just getting fed, does it really matter how the loaf of bread came to be? And education is pretty much like that. The point of it all is to have a well educated student. If you want to homeschool, grind your own flour- that's fine. If you prefer public or private school, that's presliced, and it's fine too. In the end, it's the sandwich that counts- the educated student. The way you got there isn't really all that critical. You should be able to choose which you prefer and which you can get, and choose for yourself which is best at that time. Without anyone getting all wound up about how the education happened.

Answer 9

I homeschool my kids. They have friends who are homeschooled, and friends who are not. People seem to forget that schools frown upon socializing during school hours, and that social skills (manners, for instance) aren't learned from other kids, but from their parents.

Answer 10

Home education is what you make it to be.We home school and love it.This our first year.In public school children tend to be social
or not also.And truly who are we to classify people as normal or not?