Homeschooling Thread

I am creating this thread out of curiosity for others’ experience with homeschooling. My son will be five years old this summer. My wife aims for homeschooling for both of our children.

At first I was opposed to it, but I wanted to be open minded, and there are things about modern public schooling I dislike, some of them intensely. So I went to some homeschooling meetups and read about homeschooling and developed a mildly favorable view on it. Fast forward to two Sundays ago at around 9:30 PM, lying on my bed, thinking the Fall will be here soon, and I had a eureka moment and thought, “I don’t want this!”

Obviously this has created conflict.

Has anyone here had any experience with it? What is pr was it like?

Although I in no way seek to control what others post, I am posting here mainly for those with experience. The cons people would likely share are likely identical to my list of cons!

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I was kicked out of public school 3 times and homeschooled those years. I think if you have one parent who can handle going the extra mile and putting in all the work it would be great.
I don’t think it would be an easy task though!

Another thing to consider is the social aspect of school. I know all the kids I knew who were home schooled the majority of their life were…weird, for a lack of better terms.

One thing a friends parents did that I really thought was cool is they went on a lot of vacations, but always made them educational. Plenty of historical vacation destinations to learn from as well as tropical destinations where you can learn about animal and marine life. I always thought stuff like that was really cool and would offer some really cool life and academic lessons.

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My wife homeschooled both my kids through the pandemic. We have one of the top elementary schools in that area and still chose this. They were Kindergarten (5) and Third Grade (8) at the time. She enjoyed it but I wanted them to go to school. They went back this year. My wife still WANTs to homeschool them. I’m kind of split. I agreed to let her homeschool through middle school as our options for middle schools are poor and I feel they will be ‘matured’ enough at that point to listen well.

What questions do you have?

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My daughter is 5 and we had the choice of vaccinating her against Covid (after we’ve all had it) so she could go to school in person, or homeschool. So we’re homeschooling (courtesy of California). The wife has been handling this for about 6-8 months.

Homeschooling can be great and work fine, but it is a burden on the parent who is doing it. It also depends greatly on the terms of the homeschooling as well… Are you going to be given funds to purchase school supplies that meet XYZ criteria? Are you left to do it on your own?

Personally, I want my daughter enrolled in private school (in-person) ASAP, but that won’t happen in california. I believe the most important thing any child can learn from school is conflict resolution - particularly if they are an only child.

Will try to answer whatever I can as far as questions go.

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Deleted my previous post by accident while scrolling down.

United Nations calls for more regulations to be placed on homeschooling - LifeSite

This is nothing more than a group of governments being afraid of their citizens. They always get scared when less people want their programs.

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I have homeschooling experience from the other side of the desk - my mom homeschooled me and my siblings when I was 8-9 (third grade.) In shorts it was life changing. I learned to love reading, realized the real-world use and value of math and money, played and worked outside AND improved at academics, and developed close friendships with kids in church, some of which remain to this day. My mom was a phenomenal teacher, as I suspect your wife will be, and I’m very grateful she invested that year into homeschooling.

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Same as @TriednTrue - I was the homeschooled kid. I’m not sure I “loved” it at the time, but I sure didn’t mind it. I wasn’t homeschooled my entire life though.

Pre-1st grade: Montessori
1-5 grade: homeschooled
6th grade: middle/high school on US Army base in Germany
7th grade: homeschooled
8-11 grade: went to school
12th grade: homeschooled

It definitely allowed me to become my own person. I was able to totally pursue my own interests as a kid and not be influenced by others’ opinions or worry about what was “cool.” For example, I grew to love soccer, even though other kids who liked soccer got told that it was gay by the kids who liked football. Little stuff like that, that I didn’t have to worry about. I’m glad I had that experience.

Life was pretty stress free, which I think is important for kids. My siblings would come home from being elementary school for 7+ hours, then have 1-2 hours of homework. They were taught by some good, tough teachers who had high expectations of them, which is good, but I just personally don’t think children’s daily lives need to be spent doing something every moment. They at least don’t need to spend 8 hours a day at a desk at 9 years old. Having plenty of free time to play, read, go outside, even nap, is a plus in my book.

@BrickHead - read My Antonia (maybe you read this in school) and pay attention to Jim’s change in behavior when he moves from the “uncivilized” frontier farmland, to the “civilized” town. And read The Vanishing American Adult and pay attention to the chapter discussing the author’s opinion of the importance of children learning to socialize with the elderly and the very young. I haven’t read that one for a few years so I hope I’m remembering it correctly, haha. You could probably get through both books in a weekend, they’re both easy reads.

Anyway, my girlfriend and I are planning on homeschooling our son (and future children). The literature mentioned above has had a small part in that decision for me. There are also certain things that I want to be a part of my child’s education that we can’t get in schools, like cultural things that are important to me.

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Thanks for that!

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My only concern with homeschooling is the lack of exposure to outside ideas and socialization. I grew up in Idaho and there were a lot of home schooled kids and most were weird and sheltered but I am aware that is most likely a byproduct of the home life but I really think their is a benefit to being forced to learn how to deal with different people and in groups outside of immediate family.

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This is actually one of my concerns. @otterfog

@BrickHead
This is a concern of mine as well, and a key factor in why i will not have my daughter be 100% home schooled. This being said, socialization can still happen via sports and other social avenues (my daughter does gymnastics).

Its not a problem now considering my girl is 5, but we are rushing to get into a situation where we can have her do private school. The longer she goes without in-person schooling, the longer i think she will struggle to integrate into it when that time comes.

I will day that the homeschooling in California is regulated partially by the state re. standards. This allows for some really cool stuff due to funding… my 5 year old knows how to set up and work a microscope, and raise/take care of butterflies. Both are entirely due to school funds made available to us.

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Common concern, and I think it really just depends on the family. I was homeschooled, and knew a lot of homeschoolers. The weird families turned out weirdo kids, the normal families turned out normal kids. Going to church, having a part time job, playing sports, etc. should take care of it. Plenty of opportunities to learn how to socialize, as long as you don’t have a legitimately weird family, haha.

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This raises the question-
How many kids are homeschooled because their parents are weird?

I’m not sure. I’ve met many homeschooling parents in the past year, and truthfully, none seem strange.

I went to public school and I can say there was not only no shortage of very weird kids, but perverted, anti-social and maladjusted kids. I know for a fact many had bad parenting.

Related article from today. Though I don’t like all that is written, the article touches upon important educational issues in the modern day.

If I was living in healthy times I’d send my kids to public school, no problem, whereas Lew Rockwell says public schools are inherently bad.

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I’d argue most state-led programs meet the criteria of ‘inherently bad’. If the government were a business, it would have gone under about 200 years ago; I don’t know why we would choose to trust these people - of any - to educate our youth.

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Revealing interview with psychiatrist. For a long time, about 20 years, I thought that what is being done is deliberate, not a result of the mass’s organic desires and tastes.

I still have trepidation about homeschooling, but for now, am going through with it.

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Hey @BrickHead, when you were looking for schools before you had decided to homeschool - were you looking for private schools by chance?

I’d like to get my daughter involved in regular school as she’s in Kinder now, but I’m stuck with the choice of either

  • California Public Schools (no fucking thank you)
  • Christian Private academy (no woke nonsense being taught here)
  • Continue homeschooling via charter academy

(At least until we leave this state, 1yr+)

I find myself torn with the options… We’re not religious, but if we were, we’d be Jewish (on my wife’s side). I don’t think my daughter learning about the Christian faith would be a bad thing necessarily, but religion just isn’t something we do in our house with the exception of Hannukah and sometimes Passover (I’m not involved in this part).

Just curious if you were presented with similar tough choices.

It is a business.