is home schooling better for a kid?

Question

i want too home school my baby when the baby gets older. is that more better then sending your kid too school. i had a horrible expierence when i went too school. I don't want my kid too expierence the same thing i did.

Answer 1

no offense but i think that you shud send a kid to school because a kid needs to be social and have plenty of friends. good luck!!!!

Answer 2

There are pros and cons to both. Socialization is huge and I think many home schooled kids lack the social skills needed to work with others. On the other hand - home schooled children have very few educational limitations. They are able to work at their own pace and probably learn better problem solving techniques.

It sounds as though your child is still young. Watch as they grow and develop their own unique personality. Your child may be a very social person and thrive in the traditional school atmosphere. Or they could be a person that would rather work alone.

Take this time to do some research. Visit families that home school their children. Your local library might be a good place to start -- I know the home-school families in the town I live in spend a lot of time using the resources there. Talk to the administration of the schools in your area. Not only will you find public schools - but keep in mind parochial, charter and Montessori schools. One of those may be an option. Weigh all of your options and determine which one is best for you.

I thought of home schooling my own children, but I know I'm not very organized. I didn't feel that I would do a good job because of that.

My son is in a karate class with students from the public school, a couple of different private schools and a few that are home schooled. The children that are home school definitely socialize differently from the other children...they have a harder time "fitting in" with the other students. They are more reserved. But that is only a handful of children -- and our area may be different than others. (These are all middle school and early high school age kids 12-15 ---- tough ages for socializing)

Answer 3

I think home schooling can be good for children if the parents truly want it to be successful. There are other means of socializing your children other than school. Sports, parks, play dates, etc. No I wouldn't pull my children out over bullying I would fight the school about it, and change schools. Teachers are supposed to be educated in teaching my children. I will honestly admit I am not the smartest person there is, and I suck in some subjects, and I want my children to have the best chance of a future as possible. Like my son loves Science. I suck at Science never got it, so my knowledge would not help him at all. I have more opinions on this subject but kept to the question.

Answer 4

Homeschooling can be better if you make sure it'll be better.

Please ignore those who make comments like "they should go to school because they were more social." I went to school and was very anti-social. My daughter has never been to school and tends to be a little social butterfly. My 6yo son is growing into his own and doing more with other kids, too and not quite so shy about talking with adults. (Let's just say he had MAJOR stranger anxiety for many years.)

I've just come back from a great park day with a bunch of other homeschoolers. Kids collaborating on crafts and games and creating games outside in the snow. Kids providing explanations to adults how to do the craft in question. My son providing an explanation to a question an adult, who has never spoken to him before, asked him. A wide age range of kids interacting with kids and adults alike and meeting new people... Heck, last week a bunch of them were playing some sort of poker game. (No real money involved!) Are there problems that come up? You bet. It's real life. Just because they all usually get along with each other doesn't mean that they always do. They have the advantage of having a bunch of adults around to guide them to a resolution of the problem if needed.

Nobody can tell me that homeschooled kids don't get a chance to interact with other kids simply because they are homeschooled, that they don't get a chance to collaborate or don't have conflicts with others. We could choose to stay at home and not participate in these types of things and perhaps that would be problematic. If you choose to make socializing part of your curriculum, your kids will get all the interaction they need.

So, to repeat what I started out with: homeschooling will be better if you make sure that it will be.

Answer 5

I really depends on you and our child. The biggest "con" I hear of homeschooling is the lack of socialization. I've seen this go either way. My cousins were all homeschooled their entire life by their mother. The oldest two are now married with great jobs, one with a law degree and one with and MBA. They are just as socially educated as anyone else their age. However, a girl at my school was homeschooled for several years and she acts like a 5th or 6th grader (she's a high school freshman). Her friend also acts that way, but her friend was in catholic school all her life until this school.

Honestly, socialization is easy to come by if you know where to look. There are plenty of sports groups, church organizations, and other ways to get your child interacting with others their age. There are even organizations speciffically for home schoolers to interact with each other.

Homeschooling can be good, and can do wonders for your child, but don't decide now until you better know their personality, everyone is different. I would at least attempt public or private school first.

Answer 6

I don't think that anyone can answer whether or not you should homeschool your child. Take a look at the answers you see here and think about the source. If someone says "I think homeschooled children ....." realize that they don't homeschool, probably know very few homeschooled children, and they are generalizing. It would be the same as if I said, "I think 33 year old women are good moms." It's stupid. How many 33 year old women do I know well enough to know how they mother any children they may or may not have? ONE - me.

Homeschooling is good for children in many instances because the mom/dad/stepmom/stepdad doing the teaching (or guiding in the case of online schools) care about the child/children more than anyone else in the world. This may not be the case in abusive situations, but I am guessing that in those cases the child is not wanted and the parent may not wish to protect their child from any particular bad experiences.

Some people can't handle the pressure of homeschooling their child and I don't think that they are bad people.

Homeschooling can teach children how to interact with adults using manners that are expected in the real world. As adults, they will already be "socialized" into the situations they will live in. I don't think that in this world we have to deal with bullies as adults. If an adult tried to bully another adult, the police are called or if it is your boss, you quit and find a new job. In school, you are stuck.

When you are a kid in school, no one cares what you have to say, you can skate through without actually learning the lessons given to you and it's no big deal. Every kid in my class passed every year. It didn't matter if they were able to read and write properly. It didn't matter if they hated math because they couldn't understand it. It didn't matter if they asked for help and all they got for help was another student told to "help so-and-so do this project"

There are children who are poorly socialized in school, also. Some children isolate themselves and some are isolated because they don't fit in well with others. So we should just keep pointing out to them how much they don't fit in??? How can keeping them in school help them. What is more important: their own self-image? or some sort of sense that if we leave them in the situation that they will somehow figure out how to deal with these situations and therefore they will be better off?

My answer is Homeschool is for anyone. Your post didn't say what your concern was. If you are concerned that your own education wasn't good enough to school your child, do something about it. Learn it now. Start now. Give your child the advantages that you may not have had:
Take them to the library every week
Borrow educational videos from the library
Baby Einstein
Schoolhouse Rock
National Geographic
READ to them
Let them see you reading to yourself
Read the newspaper
Join homeschooling and unschooling groups on yahoo and msn
to get more ideas of activities to do now and later.

I wish you all the best.

I just saw someone saying something about spending $400 on curriculum. HELLO... ebay? Used bookstores? Library? The total I spend on curriculum per year is closer to $25 per child. If I bought new every year I could spend thousands, but it is possible to get by MUCH cheaper. I also re-use and com ine classes and can use one resource on as many children as I have. Many of the supplies I use are free or incredibly cheap if you count the paper I print on and my ink refills! You can also make your own, too if you feel like it. Also, consider the costs involved with all that "socialization" when your child comes home and tells you that they NEED this or that because ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE ELSE HAS.... Not that you would get them everything, but even one out of every 10 things can add up!

Answer 7

Homeschooling can be good for children, if they receive a better education at home, and are still socially involved with other people. If you can provide better expertise than that of your local public, or private school system, your child may benefit from homeschooling. This means that you are well-versed in all subjects (reading, math, science, writing, logical skills, world skills, social skills, geography etc...) that your child would be learning in a traditional classroom and are willing to spend the time to teach these things to your child. Also, a child learns a lot of social, human interaction, skills at school that take place outside of the regular classroom. These are things that can only be learned through true life interaction. You must be willing to enroll your child in outside activities; scouts, sports, orchestra, dance etc...

If you have the time, knowledge, and patience to be able to achieve these things, homeschooling may be a good option for your family.

Answer 8

You're asking the wrong question.

The question should be "Would it be a good fit for my family and my child to homeschool her?"

And that question you have to figure out yourself.

Read, read READ! When you listen to what people have to say about the various "issues", think about what their underlying beliefs are about education, life, parenting before you take their comments too concretely. And then, when you hear things, ask yourself if what they say resonates with you.

I would say that homeschooling purely for the reason of keeping your child from having to go through the same hardships as you is not a good reason to homeschool. Every person goes through hardships. It is practicaly impossible to go through childhood without negative experience and influence.

However, there are lots of other issues that are important to consider that would be very good reasons to homeschool. But only you know what those reasons are. Make sure that whatever reasons you have are based on your research, your child's personality and learning styles, your beliefs, goals and family philosophy and what you think education is for. Do NOT base any of your decisions on fear. Ok, a teeny tiny bit of fear can be the impetus to get your started researching, but don't let that be a significant part of your decision making process.

Either way. Make decisions because they help you attain your goals, not to help you run away from something that is scary. There are always scary things. If you know what your goals are, you will be able to face scary things face on, even if you are petrified.

Here's a good website to get you started on your research:

http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com

Answer 9

Everybody is different, and just because you had a bad experience when you were in school doesn't mean your child will have the same experiences.
I was home schooled up til 8 grade and I remember my parents telling me all the bad thing that would happen to me at school just from what they went through. Guess what, they were wrong.

I'm currently a sophomore in high school and I love it. I get good grades, I have friends, I like my teachers (sometimes), I don't get bullied, I'm on my varsity volleyball team. But yes there has been some bad times at school but doesn't everyone have bad times?

I'm not saying I hated being home schooled, I actually loved it when I was younger. But when I turned 12 I started to not like it so much. I was bored and I wanted something new. So I talked to my parents and we agreed on me going to high school.
So in my experience I think home schooling is better for younger children.

If you really think about it most kids who attend public/private schools don't get bullied. A lot of them like school. And that's the same in home schooling, some home schoolers get bullied but most of them do not. A lot of them like home schooling. Remember everyone is different.

I think the best thing is for your child to experience both home schooling and public or private school to see which works best for him/her. Just make sure both you and your child are happy.

Best of luck!

Answer 10

I am a public school teacher, and also a recently married woman. My husband and I have talked a lot about homeschooling or even private school. Some of today's kids are not being taught how to behave in a school setting by their parents prior to coming to school. They expect the teachers to handle this along with teaching them the academics that they need to succeed in life. I feel like between my husband and I, we have enough qualifications to teach our own child. I would not have to stop teaching one group to discipline another. As the time approaches that we have our children, we are leaning heavily at keeping them home or putting them in a private school.

Answer 11

I believe that, in 99% of cases, homeschooling is better for the kid. School's original purpose was to train a working class that would follow orders; it's modeled exactly on Prussian style schooling. Prussian soldiers would march off a cliff if ordered to. Putting your kid through twelve years of that isn't healthy.

Do a lot of research in to the different kinds of homeschooling. Will you be a down-to-the-day planned teacher mom, or a hippie-zen unschooling mom? Go around to homeschool support groups and talk to people with babies who are going to homeschool them; this has the added advantage of giving you an automatic social net for your kid when he gets older.

I would advise against the curriculum at home method, though, as it CAN screw up your kid if you're schoolteacher and mother. The person who takes him to the park and gives him a bowl of ice cream should not be the person yelling at him to do his homework. Besides, if you homeschool, what's the point of homework? If you leave him alone, in a sense, he will develop quickly and with more depth than you thought possible. By having an academically conducive home, you will encourage a lifelong learner. If you make lesson plans, don't get too attached to them. In my early days of homeschooling, I'd go to my mom and say, "I want to learn about ancient Rome!" So she'd go hunt around online, find museum exhibits, books and documentaries, and have this thing planned out for me to do. By the time it was all through -which was not much time at all, actually- I knew more about the subject than she did.

If you instill a good work ethic in your kid, you will have no troubles with academics. I don't exactly say, "Oh, man! I get to do algebra now! Oh man! This is the coolest thing ever! Pssht, Morrowind is so stupid," but I do it, I like it, and it's done. Homeschooling also really lets you get to know your kid.

Don't fall in to the trap of thinking homeschooling is only for loners. True, you will probably do most of your work alone. That's like two hours. Soon enough you can enroll in all sorts of other classes, and how do you make friends when you get out of school, huh? It all boils down to going up to someone and saying hi.