What are the advantages/disadvantages to homeschooling your children?

Question

My son is almost 9 years old, he has been attending public school. He lives with his father and stepmother and they want to take him out of school to homeschool him. They say that it is for education reasons, because it is the last few weeks of school and he isn't learning anything, just re-cap of the year and for some reason that is a problem for them. I am strongly against the idea, but I have the feeling that we will be going to court eventually, if they try to push it. Another thing that was brought up was school shootings, and in my personal opinion, there are hundreds of thousands of schools in the United States, and only a few known school shootings. Please give me some advantages and disadvantages, I am trying to see this from both sides and keep an open mind, but I don't think anything is going to convince me that homeschool is best. One more thing I should mention, his stepmothers family just inherited a 50 acre farm, they want to move him there (middle of nowhere).

They want to move him to that farm and they are using "it is better to take him out of school than him deal with changing schools." Is it wrong for me to say that change is a part of life...and that it is good for him?

One more thing, I guess that I should mention that my son is highly involved in sports, has no problem making new friends, and is a straight A student, he even helps tutor kids in his class.

Answer 1

Normally, I'm a thousand percent behind homeschooling. However, he is the one exception I am against: the farm. If he is going to be in an isolated, rural environment, the only social option will be school. In this single case, homeschooling would be detrimental because he honestly would not have a chance to make friends.

It also sounds like he's happy in school, so taking him out would make him unhappy.

And lastly, it sounds like they're extremist retards, so his education would suffer.

He is one of the few cases in which I would not support homeschooling.

Before people give me a thumbs-down, please know that I have been unschooled for almost six years and strongly support homeschooling in virtually every case.

Answer 2

A quick list of advantages: Home schooling allows one to teach exactly to a child's correct educational level, not too slowly or too quickly. My children are gifted and special needs (dyslexic) so this is really important in our case.

Home schooling helps you to teach using children's interests, you can interest them more easily if you are using books that are about their favorite themes, history, science, dragons, the human body, or whatever it may be at the time.

Disadvantages: I have books all over the house! (My next house I would like to have a special home school room!)

It sounds like your son's dad is maybe worried about safety and educational issues at the public schools there. He may be more aware of any issues since he lives in the area. I do have to say that in our area we have not had any actual shootings, but every few weeks or month or so we have had children bringing drugs or weapons to the schools in our area, which is not actually a high crime or big city area. I don't remember that happening when I was growing up or even 5 or 10 years ago. It seems like it has been a more recent trend this past year or two. Perhaps I am just noticing it more since the Virginia Tech shootings but it does seem more prevalent at least in my north Florida area lately. Eventually we probably will have a shooting, which is awful to think about. I don't know how the children in this area get access to drugs and weapons, but hopefully at some point they will figure out how to reduce access to these! Until then, perhaps home schooling is not such a bad idea!

If I were you I would definitely have a long list of questions to ask your son's father/stepmother esp. with the curriculum they will be using and what kind of materials and things they will be doing. Will they be doing cyberschool or school in a box or a packaged curriculum or unschooling or what do they plan? I would think they hopefully would have at least a tentative plan to give you of what they will be doing. I would want to investigate what curriculum or cyberschool and check on it. (This is always a good place for advice if you have any other questions.)

I think home schooling can be a very quality education if you have a dedicated, motivated teacher and a good curriculum. Living on a farm sounds like a very wonderful learning experience as well! I would think they would also be sure that your son would be involved with sports and the local children to play with (Boy Scouts or a church group or whatever he would enjoy). I would just ask them to make sure that is the case of course.

I would try to be positive and open-minded about home schooling, until you find out that something is not being done in a way that you can agree with. Then probably your son's father/stepmother will be more open-minded as well to listening to your suggestions if you have been open to listening to their ideas. Good luck!

Answer 3

I can tell you that homeschooling is perfectly safe and reasonable, but there are some things to watch out for. When a child is home schooled, especially at a young age, they don't go through the social process of middle and high school. This isn't a problem per se, as you said that he is aptly social already. But my warning is that if you home school him, don't change your mind years down the road. Middle school is very much like a social training ground. And if you miss middle school, then you won't be socially ready for high school. I had a friend who was home schooled since third grade, and then went back to public in ninth. She turned into someone completely different, and could NOT handle the social weight in high school. By eleventh grade she was so distraught that she had to be pulled back to homeschooling.

There are advantages though. It's much easier for him to concentrate on his studies, and the parents will be able to be slightly more involved. Also, as cynical as this may sound, he's less likely to form friendships with the kind of people who will cause negative personality changes.

My main point is if you do it, which is fine, don't send him back to public. It's best to pick a side and stay with it.

Answer 4

Homeschooling is the answer there.

The big thing is will there be follow through.

In order for HOMESCHOOLING to be effective it must produce a functional person.

To be quite frank, most of the time HIGH SCHOOL does NOT do this.

There has to be a course of study comprable to what is expected in life and more so in college.

This means math to the level of TRIG and CALC or beyond
History and Poltics to the point where you KNOW what is going on in the world today (to be quite frank, MOST American school kids don't understand foreing government or how Parliments work and they SHOULD).

English needs to be taught in style (Chicago Manual of alternative), with good grammar, spelling, puncutation.

Sciece should include Chemistyr and Physics on a math based level.

Learning a second lagnauge would be a good idea, but is often optional. Only Ivy League and Private colleges require this and they charge $50,000 a year to go there.

If you guys don't get no $200,000 then don't push on this one, but it's still not a bad idea ot learn a little French or Spanish or Itlatian or German

Answer 5

I really don't think it's about disadvantages or advantages-- it's about personal preferences and needs. Homeschooling is an option that can be really great-- my family wouldn't have it any other way. Some people have tried it and didn't like it-- if the parents and children hate it, there aren't going to be any great advantages to homeschooling, just like if a child really hated going to public school, there's not going to be a lot of advantages for them there.

There are a lot of myths about homeschooling. I urge you to check out some books from your library on the topic. There are a lot of myths revolving around homeschooling. Socialization is the biggest-- there are literally hundreds of places to bring your kids for social interaction without ever setting foot in a school. Most homeschooled kids I know don't have any socialization problems (there's over 100 kids in our regular weekly co-op, much more in our local homeschooling community). That's not to say there aren't a few who are shy, or a few who are crybabies, but there are also your social butterflies-- pretty normal for any large group of kids. There was a study a few years back where psychologists observed a roomful of children-- half home-schooled, half not. The psychologists did not know which were which, and couldn't tell by the children's behavior.

I advise you to have an open mind before jumping into battle over this issue; it's easy to have a negative gut reaction to the idea of homeschooling because it is still uncommon and because so many people with very limited or no experience homeschooling go around bashing it. I used to be a teacher and, when I first heard of homeschooling, I automatically assumed many of the prevalent myths-- that socialization must be a problem, that parents who weren't qualified to teach would not be able to give their children a good education, that these children would not be prepared for working in a job or going to college or living in the "real world." It all turned out to be false assumptions on my part.

I think it's great you're doing some research about it before jumping to conclusions and fighting over it. It might turn out after doing some research that you like the idea; or at the very least it might ease some of your concerns and you'd be willing to try it. It's so much nicer for kids that their grown-ups with huge influence on their lives get along-- probably much more important than how they are schooled. Good luck to you.

MSB

Answer 6

Properly homeschooled your son can develop beautifully. That said I (who homeschool my 7 yo son) worry about them moving him out to the boondocks. Are they going to insure that he is socialized decently? Most of the homeschool disasters come from children that are overly sheltered. Will you be able to be part of his homeschool program? Will you have a voice in what social activities he participates in? Homeschooling has so many fine points I would hope that the 3 of you could come to an agreement to homeschool him. But you must insist on having a voice in his curriculum also. visit some homeschool sites and look into the requirements of your state and local school district to be sure everyone will be following their rules. Most homeschoolers join a homeschool group to have support for the parents and social activities for the children. Be sure that they will let you attend with your child, set up a schedule for co-op classes and outing days.

This is a good starting point http://www.hslda.org/Default.asp?bhcp=1

Good luck

Answer 7

I'm personally for homeschooling if the parents are dedicated to doing the right thing for their kids. I homeschool my kids. I used to teach in the schools and do not want my kids there. My husband currently teaches and does not want our kids there.

There are so many advantages to homeschooling--scheduling, academics, social, family focus, living in the real world... Especially living on a farm, there would be so much for him to learn, for him to do. It'd be limited if he were having to spend most of his time in school and travelling to school.

I personally feel that any capable parent should think of homeschooling first and private and public schools as the alternative. I don't think it's desirable nor even beneficial for most children to spend roughly 7 hours out of every day in an institution surrounded by same-age children. Given the typical child sleeps 9-10 hours, then there's the travel to and from school, just sleep, school and travel take up about 18 hours of a child's day. 18 hours! School alone is 35 hours a week. For what? A child could accomplish the same amount of work in a one-on-one situation in less than half the time and have the freedom to be a kid, explore... The fact that your son is tutoring other kids in the class is NOT as good of a thing as you think it is. I say this as a teacher and a former student who often helped other kids in class. It means he's not being challenged enough. If your ex and his wife go about the homeschooling in a good way, your son will be able to go beyond the limits of the school curriculum.

I see no real disadvantage to homeschooling if your ex and his wife are dedicated to your son and are willing to provide him with a great experience. If the reasons they are giving you are their actual reasons, I will admit they seem rather flimsy. However, that could just be their way of defending their decision instead of saying, "We just really feel this is the best thing for him."

I have to ask you: if it were reversed, if your son lived with you and you decided you wanted to send him to a private school but your husband really disagreed with your choice of private school, do you think he should go to court to stop you from putting your son into that private school? Or what if you did agree with homeschooling and were the full-time parent and planned on homeschooling--do you think that he should have the right to stop you from doing it?

You would probably want to talk with him about it. So do that. Talk to him about what their plans are. Not in an accusatory way. Find out what it is they plan on doing. Do they have an approach in mind? What are they specifically going to do for academics? What about social opportunities? Are they going to find other homeschoolers? Drive into the nearest town/city for activities? What about his sports? And lastly, what does your son think about all of this?

Try not to fall into the common pattern of fighting ex's on something different they want to do. Be willing to really listen and communicate with him.

Answer 8

Wow! A farm, a family, work tailored to his needs, a social calendar that involves his interests and his parents involvement. Sounds to me like a dream life.

When I homeschooled my four of my sisters and brothers. My mom came and taught art class and that's what finally got my mom to step back into her home and the life of her family. Maybe you could teach him something?

"Homeschooling was fun," says my eight year old sister. "Because of you," says my twelve year old brother, "I'm the only one in my class who knows my times tables."

If your son is smart they are probably cutting him short as far as academics go.

Good luck. I hope things work out for what is best for your son.

Answer 9

I am a high school student and I have noticed from the homeschooled kids I've been around that they are so sheltered and seem to know so little of "the outside world" Oh but in some ways this could be an advantage if you don't want him to know all about sex drugs and violence. And I've also noticed that homeschooled kids can be a lot smarter (street smart set aside) and better at things like math.

Answer 10

I would say that this is a problem. It sounds to me like your son has lots of potential with education, sports, and meeting some great people. I believe he will miss out on all of this if he gets home schooled. I know the last few weeks of school kids mainly recap for the year, take some finals, and watch movies. But I believe this is apart of school. This is apart of him growing up. I hope they change their minds.