Does anyone homeschool that isn't super religious?

Question

I think homeschooling can be great but I don't know why so my christians do it- is it to teach religious beliefs as part of the ciriculum (sp?) or to keep their kids away from the influences of strangers?

just curious

Answer 1

i was, and most of my friends then worent religious at all.

Answer 2

Homeschooled families can be of any religion, including paganism. And some of course, have no religious or spiritual beliefs at all. There are many different reasons, besides religious, why parents decide to homeschool.

Our family is Lutheran and we go to church but that's not the reason my husband and I decided to homeschool. We knew classrooms were overcrowded and teachers didn't have the time for every student. We felt that the kids would benefit from one-on-one attention. Also, my oldest was a very restless and "hands-on" kind of child and I knew she'd have difficulty sitting behind a desk all day. She did actually go to ps during kindergarten and her teacher was making hints that she was hyperactive, which wasn't the case at all. I began to find out about learning styles and how certain kids may not learn the best from the traditional methods taught by most schools. So I tried different ways of teaching and was very successful. Best of all, I wasn't pressured into putting my kid on drugs to settle her down.

Answer 3

Your American?
I currently do homeschool in Australia but it is obviosly a bit different. A school in Australia actually posts us the work and the curriculum and we follow that. It is very good, we even do an online lesson. Yes, most homeschooling families infact are christians but it is so that they get taught the christian ways all day everyday rather than once a week. I am in a program that is not christian and does no religeus studies. This is excellent, I am year 9and my brother is year 3. I don't really know anything about America, but Australia has a very good Distance Education program (Home school. School at home. Basically all of the workbooks from normal schools but with out all fo the people and you can also be very flexible.) We went to a water park for a few days, missing school and the school in Australia didn't mind. You can also start at 11am as long as you get the work done.

Hope this was useful to you!

Liv

Answer 4

We are protestant Christians and HS, but we don't HS for a "religious" purpose. We have many other reasons. HS'ing families are from all faiths and walks of life in today's society. However, 10-20 years ago, yes, the majority of HS'ers were doing it for a religious/moral purpose.

FWIW, we don't HS to keep our son away from "the influences of strangers". Far from it -we're out in the public way more than if he were in a brick & mortar school.

*Some* people who don't like the public schools and cannot afford the private church schools homeschool for that reason - money. Some kids like mine will never thrive in a B&M school setting. Even though I'm a Christian, I don't use a Christian curriculum. We do, however, work our faith into daily life...but we'd do that anyway, even if our son was in public school.

Answer 5

What do you mean by "super religious"?
Religion, and people of Faith are not one and the same.
I can go to Church religiously, and not be a believer, I can site religious doctrine, and not practice one letter of it in daily life?

We are Bible believing Christians, who try to live according to the teachings of Christ; and yes, we fail to often to mention, however we keep trying, and by doing so, are setting an example for our children that God; Jesus Christ is perfect, and that we are a work in progress.

We do believe that God ordained the parents to be the children's teachers, as is stated in the Bible on numerous occasions, and not to be left to strangers, or non-believers.

This does not keep them away from strangers, but rather gives them the time to get grounded in their faith, and have a firm foundation before being exposed to everything that contradicts our beliefs.

Do we solely home school for that reason, no, we do not.
Home schooling is all about family.

We believe in teaching our children solid academics which unfortunately is no longer a top priority in either public, or private schools; although I know there are rare exceptions.

Our children are a most precious gift, and we only get one chance to do right by them, so to us home schooling is the one and only alternative education that has both the quality of education we are looking for, as well as the most positive social environment a child can be provided with during their formative years.

Deuteronomy 11: 18-20
Proverbs 22: 6
Galatians 6: 6

Answer 6

Well, first of all, define religious-- do you mean religious in people in general, like including Jews, Hindus, Muslims, UUs-- or do you mean Christian when you say religious?

I ask because our family is religious, but we are not Christians. Our religion is not dogmatic, and we don't homeschool for religious reasons at all. Since we are a minority religion, we obviously can't avoid our kids hearing things that are different from our beliefs or meeting people of different beliefs-- they do every time they step out the front door, or put on the television or listen to the radio or read a book. The only way to shield them from that would be to lock them in the basement, and since we're not afraid that there are other religions or other beliefs out there, we don't feel the need to do that.

And we do teach our religious beliefs, but it's not part of our curriculum since we don't use a formal curriculum at all. Our faith, like education, is simply intergrated in all aspects of life for us.

You have to remember that most people who homeschool are Christian simply because most people in this country are Christian. Of course concentrations of fundamentalist Christians are going to be found more in certain areas of the country than in others. Where I live, there are few groups that are exclusively Christian, many are just Christian-based though simply because this is the majority of the group-- this simply means they hold Christian values (not that different from many other people's values, IMO) and celebrate Christian holidays together, etc. There are also lots of secular and mixed groups where I live (like the two main groups I am part of) where religion doesn't play a part at all. There's even a Pagan homeschooling group nearby.

MSB

Answer 7

Why do so many Christians do it? We home-school our children for many reasons -- you have identified 2 of them already. It isn't exactly the influence of strangers but instead it is the bad influence of people that do not have godly values. We have no problem with strangers that offer good influence.
It is also the fact that children that are raised by other children do not do as well as those raised by parents. Group schools tend to group children together with minimal supervision and expect them to be mature in their thoughts and behavior.

We home-school because we have seen very good results in other families that have raised their own children in a home-school setting.

There are thousands upon thousands of home-schoolers. There are many faces to the process.

You can do an internet search for home-school groups and find everything from Christian to pagan, from religious to secular, from "regular" school at home to unschooling, from school from books to school from nature, etc. etc.etc.

Every Christian home-school will be different from the next as also will be every non-christian home different from another.

Home-schooling keeps the parent-child relationship intact. It gives the student the opportunity to learn at a pace that is unique for each personality and ability.

Home-schooling is an excellent choice for many families. There are some that might not be able to make it work -- but MOST can do very well.

Answer 8

Yes, there are Christian, Orthodox Jew, Muslim, and LDS groups that homeschool primarily for religious reasons. Our homeschool group contains "all of the above" and it is cool to hang out with these people.
Yes, I cannot deny that spiritual reasons influence my decision to homeschool. For example, you would have to be blind not to notice the stuff that goes on at public schools (my nephew was extremely traumatized after witnessing a brutal murder at his school!) Also, people of faith are constantly having their values undermined by the fundamentalist humanism that is pervasive in the public school system.
But the best reason is that you will never have to answer to "The Man" and your kid will be the smartest, most advanced, and most non-conformist kid on the block. Plus, wake up time is 8am, beat that.

Answer 9

I can't speak for all homeschooling families, but we homeschool our 3 kids and our main reason is educational. Our secondary reasons are religious and social.
Educationally, the schools in our area are horrid. My son (now 10 and in 7th grade) was reading at 3 and reading chapter books at 5. When I took him in for Kindergarten screening at age 4 they told me to quit reading to him because I was going to cause problems for his future teachers. That pretty much sealed the deal for me. So we kept him home. He progressed quickly and loves learning.
Socially, he is involved in many many activities and has tons of friends most of which are schooled publicly or privately. He is in baseball, scouts, basketball, church youth group etc.
Am I glad that he doesn't have to see 5th and 6th graders giving sexual favors in the hall? Heck yeah! Am I glad that he still doesn't know all the curse words? Yes! Am I thrilled that he has never shouted"I hate you! You're ruining my life!" Definitely. All of that is because we homeschool. (like I said our schools aren't great and we live in a very conservative, rural area - I can't imagine how bad it would be if we lived in the city)
Yes, eventually he will go out into the "real world", but I fully expect him to be mature enough to not only stand up to the peer pressure, but to hold the world to higher standards. I don't want him to fall in with just anyone - I expect him to be picky about his acquaintances.

Answer 10

My mother-in-law is EXTREMELY religious (she's my husband's stepmother) and decided to homeschool her daughter to keep her away from "undue influence" at public schools. This was when they lived in Alaska. Unfortunately, my father-in-law died, so she took her daughter to SC to be close to some friends there. She had read about the Bob Jones Academy (the HS version of the Bob Jones University; extremely religious education--they pretty much have their own community there, with banks, stores, etc.; in our opinion--mine, my husband's, brother-in-law & his wife--this is a cult!!!!) and my sis-in-law enrolled there. After less than a year, she left because of some issues with the belief system there (very racist views).

My sis-in-law ended up transferring to a different "religious" high school. Unfortunately, because my mother-in-law had kept her very, VERY sheltered in her life, she got pregnant by her second (ever!) boyfriend 3 months before graduation!! She is now married ("shotgun wedding"--my mother-in-law demanded that she get married to the guy) and has a son of her own.

Now, I am planning to homeschool my children for a totally DIFFERENT reason. My family believes in God, the 10 commandments & prayer, but not in "organized" religion (as in, going to church or Mass). I feel that our schools are not doing right when it comes to the education of our children. "High-stakes testing" is WRONG!!! We live in WA, we have to deal with the WASL (which is a high-cost failure!!) and on top of that, our state's Superintendent of Public Instruction (Teresa Bergeson), along with the majority of her employees, are THEOSOPHISTS!!!

Our older daughter wants to continue through public high school. I said that we will let her try 9th grade there and see how things go. She is doing okay with her grades, but I know for a fact that when kids from WA go to college, they end up in remedial math courses to "undo" the damage caused by all the "fuzzy math" that is being taught in our schools!! (My younger daughter is a toddler, and I have decided that she will be homeschooled and, depending on how education changes by the time she is old enough for jr. high and high school, she may be able to take a few courses there.)

On top of that, my son is being bullied at school. We are tired of calling the principal and his teacher (they do nothing about it; there was 1 incident prior to band that, if the band teacher had not called me to tell me about it, I would have never known). He will still go to public school for band classes, but otherwise, he will be removed and be homeschooled for 6th grade.

There are many reasons for homeschooling and it is not all that uncommon any more. Religion doesn't have anything to do with the decision so much now. It is about doing what is right for your children, especially if the public school system isn't!

Answer 11

I'm an atheist and I home school.

This country is predominately Christian, so it makes sense that the demographics of home schoolers would reflect that.

The stereotype is that home schooling is for the fervently religious trying to shelter their kids from the world, but I saw someone state here the other day that even for the religious that is not the main reason they choose to home school.

What we all have in common is wanting to give our kids the advantage of individualized attention, and preserve their love of learning.