Question for someone who has homeschooled their children?

Question

I have been considering homeschooling my 8 year old. The things I am worried about are behavioral problems later in life because she's not experiencing life. She goes to school with kids all the way up to the 8th grade and she see's and hears things that no child at that age should. Were you successful in homeschooling and did you stick with it through out or did you stop and put them back in school? Basically I need pro's and con's. :)
Thanks

Answer 1

I'm a little confused--do you think she's not experiencing life in school and you're worried about behaviour problems later on due to that, or do you think that homeschooling means "not experiencing life"?

Homeschoolers can experience life. Were you really planning on never going out? Never participating in any activities? Never doing stuff outside the house? If those are your plans, please do not homeschool your child. When I was teaching, I saw plenty of growing behaviour problems BECAUSE of being in school.

If you want to do what successful homeschoolers do, then you make sure to have reasonable social outlets available, you do things in the community, you have her experience the life everybody else lives when they're not stuck in a desk surrounded by same-age peers most of the time.

Biased and unbiased research has been done on the social effects of homeschooling on children and they've ALL been positive. The one condition, though, is that you actually be active: do Girl Scouts and swimming lessons and clubs and stuff with homeschoolers and volunteer and have parties and go to parties and all that.

Pros: chance at better social, academic, emotional, etc. development for various reasons. You, as the parent, though, have to be committed to making it a better upbringing than what she'd have in school.

Cons: the number of people who haven't a CLUE about homeschooling who spout off nonsense as though it were some documented fact.

Answer 2

I don't have kids, but I was homeschooled from 6-12th grade and I have 3 other brothers that were always homeschooled. There are some pros and cons, but for the most part it was a good decision on the part of my parents to do so. Honestly, I didn't get to socialize very much as we didn't have any kids in our neighborhood. Really, though, I don't think that's much of a problem today because there are so many other homeschoolers, now, and many of them have weekly get togethers where they study, play sports, and lots of other things.
Other than that, it was all good.

Answer 3

I would agree with most the other answers you have gotten. I went to public school for k-2, private for 3-4 and 6, and was homeschooled 5 and 7-12 and am glad. The only thing I would like to add is it works well with some children/parents and not for other children/parents. We began really homeschooling when we moved to a small town, so we didn't really socialize much, but that was fine for us. It wasn't that my parents kept me sheltered, it's that I didn't want it. However, I worked several jobs so I maintained relationships with older people, just not my peers. Next May I'll be graduating from college with a 3.95 and my friends are shocked when they find out I was homeschooled -- after all, I'm normal. So, if you do your research and think it's for you, don't freak out. Things will work out! Plus, when you start as young as eight, your daughter will be able to get involved in various homeschool groups and such with no problem. Check in your local area, there's bound to be at least one!

Answer 4

It may well be against the law to drop out of school at 13, but homeschooling isn't dropping out. There are no required things to "learn" for anyone. No state could guarentee learning. Plenty of people go thru public schools and have diplomas they can't even read. It's really difficult to judge what really goes on in any household unless you are living in that household. What you wrote about sounds absurd, and probably inaccurate. But, there are some crazy people out there. There must be some reason that this mother is choosing this educational method. Maybe the girl was at a 2nd grade level after all those years in public school, if so, would it really be better to send her back there? Hope it all works out well for your friend :D

Answer 5

I started homeschooling my daughter when she was 8; she is now going on 17 in a few days.

I'd say we were pretty successful, she's a great kid.

We took a fairly unstructured approach from the beginning. She's very big on reading and writing-- she reads and writes voraciously. She took classes with our co-op in science, when she was younger she took martial arts and went to girl scouts, but as she became a pre-teen she started pursuing in acting and singing though classes at a performing arts school. She was in a performance troup for a couple of years where she and a group of kids went around performing in retirement homes and assisted living facilities. She became a big musical theater buff, she and her friends love to go to musicals or rent musical movies, both old an new. She knows more broadway show tunes than I ever knew existed, lol.

She started volunteering in the library a couple of days a week at 13 which gave her a great deal of office work experience. She also volunteers at our UU church now when she gets a chance.

When she was 15, she started taking community college classes and has accumulated over 30 credits now. She's has gotten very into sign language and discovered she has a knack for it, has taken several classes in it and is taking deaf studies now and wants to be an interpreter, preferrably in theaters. She's also started assisting a teacher at our homeschool co-op last year and will be teaching her first class this fall, sign language, to early elementary age students in our co-op.

I don't think there have been any cons to homeschooling-- it gave her much more varied educational opportunities and social opportunities than school ever did. I'd do it all over again.

We also have 6 and 8 yr old boys who have never been to school, and though their learning styles and interests are different than their sister, it seems to be going just as well because all ready they're getting involved in a great variety of interests and activities and studies.

Answer 6

I have a teen and an 8 yr old. Ive been homeschooling for a year now and I will say that my kids are more normally socialized now than they were in public school. My kids learn to 'socialize' with babies, kid their age, adults and the elderly from all different walks of life. They are completely FREE to be their true selves without the peer pressure and concentrate on their true passions in life. I do not make my kids do a lot of busy work but instead learn life skills that I feel are really what's important. How many adults out there can really remember all they learned in public school other than learning how to read, write and math? My kids are involved in 4-H (AWESOME!), scouts, homeschool groups, library, volunteering in the community etc. They have time to do all of this now! If you do try homeschooling, try to give it at least a year, preferably 2, before you throw in the towel, especially for the older ones who have been in PS longer, they need more time to detox and eventually will acquire that love for learning again!

Oh, the cons would be that you will go through school again through them, learning with them. I missed so much the first go around that I dont think this is really bad.

HS is not for everyone, but dont knock it until you try it!

Good Luck!

Answer 7

I really recommend that you find a copy of "So You're Thinking About Homeschooling" by Lisa Whelchel. (Many libraries have a copy.) It describes different homeschooling families and why and how they chose to homeschool. It will give you a lot of information to consider (in an enjoyable way) to help you make your decision. There is also an appendix with resources in the back if you do decide to homeschool.

It's not as dry as many homeschooling books, and she really just tries to inform the reader so that they can make an informed decision. It also touches on most of the main issues and criticisms of homeschooling.

Good luck!!

Answer 8

Homeschool is way worth it. Your kid cn socialize with ANYBODY she wants to. ANd se won't have to be around the men kids who laugh at you for some little thig that doesn't matter. And you get to choose what books to use also so that is good. And your child learns to be friends with people of ALL ages. A con though is that you as the child's teacher won't have time during shool to go grocery shopping or anything. But you can brng her with you and make it a learning expirience like teach her some math there and stuff. And with homeschool she won't have loads of homework that public school gives. And she doesn't have to do 7 hours of school. She can finish all her school in 3 hours if you want to make it happen. And also you can concentrate on the stuff you want her to learn instaed of the stupid stuff that the public schoolmakes her learn.

Answer 9

We are currently still home schooling three; our oldest is in her late twenties, and active duty military.

Our teen is very social, works almost full-time, and is in the process of taking classes at the local college after returning from a summer art college.

The two younger ones are plugging along, and have plenty of outside activities to keep even the most energetic child, and parent occupied.

Is it easy? No way, it is exhausting - but rewarding - at times we still doubt ourselves, and have had day's where we would have gladly thrown in the towel :)
All of us have bad day's; that is the time when you take a break, and tell the kids "school is closed for X amount of day's".

Home schooling is not tied to the school calendar unless you want to structure your home school that way; we go year round, and take time off when we want too.

I know some parents who have send their children back to school come high school.
Not all, but most said that they did regret that decision later for a variety of reasons.

Successful home schooling is hard to define.
It greatly depends on what you think success is, since home schooling is not just about academics, but also about building relationships within the family, and the development of the children's character.

I really cannot compare home schooling to conventional schooling because that would be like comparing apples to oranges.
Our oldest attended DOD, and private Christian schools, until the 8Th grade, as well as 7 months of public high school, so we have had experience with conventional schools previously.

Every year I see many home school graduates that go on to college, or start a work study program; and very few have ever said they regretted choosing home schooling, actually I know only of two families who felt they would not do it again.

Home schooling is not for everyone; it is a life style, as well as an alternative educational choice.

Answer 10

I homeschool my 9 year old. I have for the last 2 years and I love it!!! We homeschool using the eclectic method. This means we use a variey of methods to teach. Right now she is very much into gardening and recycling. So we have planted a huge garden in our backyard and we are basing her schooling around that. It's fun to watch her learn and not realize she's learning. She makes a hypothesis about what will happen and what will grow first and then she makes observations about what really happens.

She knows how to follow a recipe and how to double it or triple it or even cut in down because we do cooking math alot. It teaches to add or subtract fractions, multiply or divide numbers. It's also some science. Why does a cake bake like it does? What happens if you put water and oil together? Can I use sugar instead of flour? Why not?

I homeschooled my son for a year then put him back in public school. He is at the head of his class and is usually bored but he enjoys it there. He thrives in public school. His a social butterfly so staying at home drove us both crazy!!! But I would bring him back to homeschooling in a minute if he ever desired it again!

My daughter will probably be homeschooled all the way through high school. She is involved in many things....church, 4H, sports, recycling, and whatever else she decides interests her. She is learning how to deal with things that others her age can't deal with yet because we teach her to talk her feelings out and to problem solve for herself. She doesn't have behavioral problems if anything my children are much better behaved than others their age because we instill our values and beliefs in them, something they don't get in public school!

No socialization among homeschoolers IS NOT a myth. There are children out there whose parents don't get them involved in things outside of their homes and then they don't learn how to interact with others. But then the majority of parents out there are involved in many things giving their children a variety of interactions with others. It is up to the parents to make sure that their children are involved.