What are your real life experiences with home schooling fundamentalists?

Question

Do you have any family members who have done this? Not "home schoolers" but fundy home schoolers.

I have 8 neices and nephews who have never been into public school. Both sisters tried very hard to be the best teachers they could be and gave sincere effort. Now that the kids are entering adulthood, they are becomming train wrecks. Many are dropping out. Only one has even attempted college. Mostly they are fired from a succession of jobs and have massive relationship problems.

Compared to the "public educated" kids in the family, who are in school, on scholarships, happy in healthy relationships or working. Am I alone here? What are your experiences?

Answer 1

I have only known one fundy home-schooled family. The kids seem ok... for the most part. But they don't have many friends, even in their church.

Answer 2

One of my relatives has 10 children; she and her husband are Bible fundamentalists (my husband, kids, and grandkids and I are the only Catholics in the family mix, which gets interesting, but that's another story.) She has a degree in mathematics, of all things, and began home-schooling after #4 was born.

#1 recently graduated high school. Nice kid, all of them are really, not perfect people but just perfectly normal kids. But I am a bit concerned about the recent graduate; too overwhelmed by even a small Bible college, she's elected to stay home and help with the younger kids "for a while". Now, part of that could be a naturally reserved personality, and the others may do better out in the world; I'm not going to jump to any conclusions. Nor do I have anything against home schooling.

Would #1 have done better socially-speaking in public school, or would she have been traumatized by the jungle we all know high school can be? Second-guessing is all it is, and only time will tell how things work out for her and her siblings. Even if she does stumble a bit, though, it's nothing that I haven't also seen in public school-educated kids one way or another. Any way you look at it, early adulthood is often hard to navigate.

Answer 3

I know there is a huge homeschool podcasting network. You could get onto this from I-tunes (which is free). I'm sure that not all of them are fundies. There's also a movement called un-schooling. Frankly, I don't think unschooling is great, but there must be someone who it works well for. This might be a starting place anyway. Could I also suggest trying a different school or district? Some schools do not do well with students with special needs or behavioral issues. Finding a school with appropriately trained administrators is just as important as appropriately trained teachers, in my opinion. If the public school is not working, you could try looking for specific charter schools. That seems to be popular in my community. There is also a series of books out at Barnes and Noble that provide the full curriculum for which ever grade you pick. They're expensive, but they look very convenient to me. Hope this helps.

Answer 4

My sister works in the administration of a school district. She's seen that kids who have been homeschooled who enter the public school system are almost always at least a grade level behind their age group and must take extra classes to catch up. I think there's a lot of romance associated with homeschooling that does not compute in real life.

Answer 5

Hmmmm, I have a neighbor who has 8 kids, all home taught and every one of them are well rounded , well educated, are productive, play instruments, the 4 oldest have all gone to college, 1 is becoming a doctor, 1 is married with child but still in college, 1 is newly married and is becoming a pilot, 1 is in college and working, and the last 4 are still at home going through *school*..... but, Mom went to college to become a teacher, that could be the difference, also Mom belongs to a *group* of state home schoolers that exchange teaching talents, they have lawyers, they rent a gym and have a coach that teaches basket ball , etc., the have field trips, as you can see it is a well organized , well oiled, and VERY disciplined organization...... go in peace..... God bless

Answer 6

I have a very distant relative who briefly got quite into Islam - he would avert his gaze from any female unles she was wearing a burka, and would only associate with Muslims. He grew out of it, though.

Extremist Christianity of the home-school type is pretty rare in Britain, so I don't have any experience of it.

Answer 7

I only know personally only one family. Their son plays soccer and is home schooled because of that. He is a fine Christian young man. Only good things to say.

Answer 8

I think the differance is in the amount of outside interactions these children have in comparison with either the "publicly educated" or even with other home-schooled children.

If their parents limited their contact with other children who would have "polluted" their children's minds with doctrines other than theirs then they have not developed the interpersonal coping skills they needed....

Answer 9

Hmmm, so according to you all the children that are home schooled have parents that are Fundamentalists?!!

Strange, my grandchildren are being home schooled, and my son and his wife are far from being Fundamentalists...
and both my granddaughters score at 2 levels above their age...

Answer 10

I work with two people who are "christian homeschooled" and they are the worst people I have ever met--obnoxious, rude, ignorant,lazy, think the world owes them their jobs...