I used to be able (with a few exceptions) to pick out the home-schooled kids in a crowd: they were the quiet, socially awkward ones who liked to talk about medieval times and their pants were always too short.
I swore I would never home-school my future children, for the sake of their social development and basic life skills training. In my view, their parents were trying to shield them from the trials of the real world, but without learning how to cope I assumed these kids would be destined to struggle once they were outside of their home schooling bubble.
But in the past ten years or so I have met many, many people who have either been home-schooled themselves or are presently home-schooling their own children and they don’t come remotely close to fitting the stereotype I grew up with. They are well-adjusted, thriving, polite, funny, creative and social people. This has caused me to completely re-evaluate my ideas about home schooling and I am now completely in favour of it, filled with admiration and respect for those who choose the home schooling route.
That being said, I think I would be the WORST home-schooling teacher ever. I am unorganized, messy, impatient and I hate schedules. If I were to home-school, my kids would never get past a first-grade reading level, we would yell at each other all day long, the house would sink into an even deep state of disarray and I think I might spend a lot of time crying.
However, I would totally pay good money to send my kids to be home-schooled at someone else’s house, someone who was doing a great job of it. I know some mothers who excel at home-schooling and they are always planning exciting excursions with their kids, tailoring their curriculum to the subjects their kids are interested in, and their children are many grade levels ahead of their age, all the while they have a great family bond and truly enjoy spending their days together. I envy that. I really do.
I just registered my eldest daughter for kindergarten at the local elementary school for next year and while I am mostly excited for what lies ahead for her, there is a piece of me that wishes I were more capable of home-schooling to keep her with me for a while longer before throwing her into the sea of vulnerability.
Of course, we all do what’s best for our kids and if it ever became clear that home schooling were the right (and only) option, I would totally do it and give it my all. (I just kind of hope it never comes to that!)
Do you home school? Or do you think public school is a more realistic option? Are you sticking with your original education plan for your children or have your ideas shifted as the years have passed?
I very much agreed with missing out on the social aspect of school, until the last 5 years. I have seen many people homeschool with great success and their children turn out better than they would in the public system. I dont have anything against public school, I was in the public school system and I did just fine. But I think often you need to look at the individual needs of each child.
Some children struggle in the public system because they are too advanced, and their teacher cannot afford the time to teach them ahead, others struggle because they need more help to keep up with the regular curriculum. Most often I see families that decide to homeschool because their kid is bored with what they are learning because they already know it. I don’t know for sure if this is always the case, or if the child is just misbehaving for other reasons, but its a good scenario to maybe consider homeschooling.
Also with such things as brownies/scouts, church groups, soccer leagues, swimming, dance etc.. I dont think that school is necessary to develop socially anymore. As long as your allow your child to be in that setting where they can be around other children. Group homeschooling options are available in some places too ( I cannot remember the name, but I believe the parents meet once a week or for school trip type things) to do group work.
I guess another issue with homeschooling (and I have definitely seen this) is the lack of structure. Some parents choose the homeschool option because of this, but realistically the world works on a schedule, so even if its not the 8 hours a day, there should probably be some structure, if for no other reason than to prepare that child for how the world works.
Done. And thanks for sharing your experience, Kelly. Sounds like it’s been a challenging year, but how lucky are you to have a strong relationship with your kids through it all, probably due much in part to your homeschooling lifestyle.
Are you able to take my last name off my comment? I realized I put my full name and shouldn’t have. Thanks a lot.
We’ve homeschooled for almost 13 years. It’s had mostly ups as I always relished in active learning as a family, not simply a teacher/student setting. Of course some things are designed that way but I think a common fallacy is that homeschoolers sit at a table or desk all day doing schoolwork. Homesachooling becomes difficult when things in a family situation changes. Separation, moving, marital infidelity and looming divorce can shake up your life and obviously affect your life which in turns effect your family life in regards to schooling. We have had to take serious steps back from our community and homeschooling in general to just survive this year, but that is the blessing of homeschooling as well. When your life shifts in a serious way, when things begin to stabilize you are able to pick up and contiune schooling not worrying about the kids being behind because you can design your own schedule. I may not be able to school at home as long as my children would like, but I am happy to have given them as many fun and adventurous years as a unit as I could.
I work in the theatre. When we need child actors and casting calls are put out, the bulk of kids that are available for the full time work schedule are home schooled kids. As a person that has never met these kids before and is trying to work with them I have learned that I WILL NEVER HOME SCHOOL.
These kids don’t socialize well with anyone. They can’t “hang out” with the other kids, they don’t seem to blend with public school. They bother the adults, conversations start out great but the kids are obviously very smart but are still young and don’t know how to keep discussions pleasant. From where I sit it is like they have to prove how smart they are, as though they are the only one that has studied on this particular topic. They have been told they are receiving a superior eduction and they know it.
The most bothersome part is that they don’t deal well with the structure of our rehearsal days. It is much like a school day but instead of blocks of time set aside for subjects we are doing specific scenes etc. They don’t seem to understand that it is not always about them and what they want to do.
I have worked on 10 or so shows with over 40 different kids. I am still basing this on a small number – but a random number. These kids come from all over Calgary and area, from all different backgrounds etc. I don’t know the parents, the kids or the circumstance. I just get to meet the brand new child and I have yet to see one that breaks this mould.
We have every intention of home-educating our daughter. She’s only 18 months old right now, but because we’ve already made the decision, we are already taking measures to ensure that we are the very best teachers we can be athome. We have been scouting out the local resources, joining home-schooling groups and accompanying them on excursions so that we know where the children all stand at various grade levels and which families we mesh well with, collecting calendars of events for places we buy memberships to (i.e. arboretum garden tours, park story times, zoo camps), and best of all we have located a charter school that applies to our county. The way the charter works is that home-educating families are given an amount of money to use toward educational expenses over the course of a year – and in exchange, the families must meet with someone once every 4-8 weeks to evaluate the children’s accomplishments, issue standardized tests, etc. The charter also organizes once monthly field trips to encourage families to bond with one another and has a list of resources they regularly reimburse – including everything from foreign language playdates to eco-friendly art supplies.
It’s not a route I ever thought I’d go down, but I don’t feel that we have a choice. Our local elementary school no longer teaches science, art, or music. They teach reading in the second grade and most classes are 40 per instructor. We aren’t moving – this is a good neighborhood with low crime (only two crimes last year at all), my parents live down the street, and all of our siblings live within an hour. The only private schools are religiously affiliated, which wouldn’t be a problem except that we also can’t afford private school for more than one child if we want to provide for university expenses. And, last but not least, our district does not feed into a high school since there are so few children in the area. As a result, the high school that children are then put into (it’s split fifty/fifty based on location, grades, and population) is one of the most violent high schools outside of Los Angeles. We’re surrounded by families who home-educate and are doing so brilliantly – I have no doubt that we could do so too.
It’s slim pickings around here, so home-education it is.
I personally feel very lucky to have the option to home-school and I’m beginning to really look forward to it. I already do as much as I can to provide my daughter with a balanced age-appropriate education and although right now that’s mostly limited to sensory play like fingerpaint and taking nature hikes where we identify coyote scat and climb pine trees, I feel confident that as my husband and I continue down this road we will only improve our teaching skills. We can enroll our children into team sports or community programs and continue as a part of home-education groups to ensure that our daughter has ample opportunities to socialize with other children. We can also sign her in to public school visits with friends of hers a few times a year. There are so many options available to us that I am sure we will have a blast.
Some friends of ours nearby have a home-educated child who recently graduated from high school with two A.S. degrees and a four-year ride to an Ivy League. It was the same story with their older children as well. Not every homeschooling story is like that, but now that I know that home-education can be done well by ordinary people like me, I can’t really go back to the same way of thinking I had before. My husband and I are both intelligent, well-educated people. We can give our daughter a better education than the school down the way – it would be really hard to do worse. So I don’t really care what other people say about families who choose to organize their own children’s education – I know that we’ll be fine.
Great feedback as well Angela. I do think though that there is a difference between parenting and teaching. Personally, I can recognize my shortcomings. I would never try to teach my son how to say, play hockey, because I don’t have the skills and I recognize that he would benefit from someone with more skills and me rooting him on from the sidelines. when I said I’d love someone else to homeschool my kid, it was sort of tongue in cheek, but – homeschool, public school or private school – I agree I know my kid best and I intend on being involved as much as possible!
Great discussions Amanda!
There are still a lot of stereotypes in this article about revising homeschool stereotypes! And in the comments. And it’s not surprising – I spent years in public school, private school and was homeschooled as well. I have chosen homeschooling for my three children, and I have to continually challenge my own thinking about how I am approaching my children’s education. We all tend to stereotype in some way.
It’s a huge deal to me to be able to teach my children in a way that excites us all. I am growing life-long learners, and I love that we can learn together, all the time. We don’t need tests (at least not in elementary school) because I know what they know.
Socialization is a myth – there are plenty of weird, unsocialized kids in the school system. And kids are not missing out on a social life – parents can be deliberate about providing social opportunities, and teach the child that having extra family time is a blessing. A parent who agonizes over the child’s social opportunities is more likely to give the child the impression that they are missing out on something, and from my years in the public school system, it’s not all sunshine and roses. My children’s extra years at home are also extra years of spending the majority of their time in an environment where their individuality is praised and accepted, while being gently taught social norms. Think about that! I love it that my children are not yet guarded – that I can tell them, “You did that so well!” and they respond, “I know!” in delight because no one has told them it isn’t cool to show enthusiasm, or to be interested in that particular hobby or subject. No one is telling them that they have to be like someone else in order to win friends and be liked.
Socialization is not the only or largest reason I homeschool, but it does often seem to be the biggest prejudice against homeschooling.
Finally, I feel sad for moms who say they’d love to homeschool but don’t think they could. It is hard, like parenting is hard. But like parenting, you know your child best. And no one gives their child to a stranger to parent, saying, “I wish I could parent my child, but I don’t think I can do it.” There are also great support systems and accountability programs for home educators.
And like parenting, homeschooling is incredibly rewarding.
amanda – every thing you wrote in this is how I feel – exactly! I have totally reversed my thinking on homeschooling recently as well but like you, I could never do it – but I would love someone else to homeschool mine!
I am in my 10th year of homeschooling my children, after having taken my oldest out of school after third grade. She graduated last year, and even though we had several missteps, she was able to graduate, and got into the three colleges to which we applied. My remaining homeschooled children are aged 6-15, and we are working through what they need.
I would challenge you that I am messier and more disorganized than you, I have 6 children and 1 on the way, and what it takes more than anything else is the commitment to work on yourself, and to get in there with the children. If you are feeling a tug to spend more time with your daughter, you should pay attention to that urge, and get to the bottom of it. If she misses Kindergarten at school, she’ll probably be better off.
As for socialization and sports, my oldest two children played homeschool basketball, with my daughter’s team going to the state finals three years in a row. We have sports coming out of our ears… basketball followed swim team, and baseball, my younger daughters did gymnastics, ballet, and cheerleading. It is all available if you look for it. We have a play group for the children to play with friends, as well as a couple of co-ops that offer classes and friends for the children.
Sorry, I know I can go on and on about the benefits of homeschooling. None of this is to say that it’s easy, but I find teaching the children to keep house is much preferable to trying to run the house while spending all day at the school ‘volunteering.’
I think a lot of people mistakenly think that homeschool is easy. Teaching is NOT easy … it is a challenge. To me, the most important part of school life is the potential for social and emotional learning that it offers … you can’t replicate such an authentic setting in your own home. School provides children with their first opportunity to explore their own identities and their worlds OUTSIDE of the home. And a child who is homeschooled (even with a few) other, in my opinion, will not fully benefit from this all-encompassing type of learning.
Tannis, you are one of the families I consider to be doing homeschooling well. Are you accepting enrollment for next year’s classes? If so, I’ll sign Avelyn up to come and learn with your girls. 🙂
I was just formulating a long, thoughtful response to this when I got to EM’s post. You just saved me 20 minutes of writing! Ditto, all of it. I home school my 2 daughters (ages 7 and 9) and have 3 year old at home. We love it, it’s working for us and we take it year by year. We have a great relationship with our advising teacher and feel well supported.
We’re homeschooling. We are taking it one year at a time. I am not against public education, so if a reason comes up for me to send the kids to a school building I plan to be just as active in their education on that front as I am at home. Over all I think every mom agrees that it is important to know where their child is at in their subjects, who their friends are, what their interests are, what their natural strengths are and how to help their child in any area that they might be struggling. Moms of public school kids are just as concerned with these issues as homeschooling parents.
I’m so glad to have the privilege of walking with my kids through their formative education, and perhaps even beyond. I think the difference that you might be seeing in homeschool families these days is that everyone has access to so much information and so many resources now. Homeschooling is not done in isolation anymore. It is not just for people who live in the boonies. My husband is hoping to one day own a sail boat and explore the ports of Europe with us all. If that ever happens, what a great field trip! There are fantastic homeschool associations and scads of online support and information, and even government funding.
Having talked with a facilitator in our school division, she explained the modern home school trend to be a result of a transition from the industrial era to the communication and technological era. Many of us work from anywhere there is an internet connection, it is logical for our children to follow suit. Many educators get nervous about this because it is a threat to their traditional way of earning a living. As more and more students turn to on line distance learning the education systems will transition and the homeschooler will be a normal and accepted part of our society. There will still be “weirdos”, just as there are weirdos in every classroom and work place you care to walk into. In my experience if my kids are as “weird” as the exceptional, well spoken, well informed, highly intelligent and capable home schooled individuals I’ve had the privilege to meet then I will count myself very lucky indeed.
As a teacher, I know the work and preparation that goes into a good lesson. I’m not saying homeschooling can’t be done well, but it would take A LOT of work, structure and patience. I personally think it’s good for kids to be in a schooling environment with different types of learners and different types of people and races. School is not only for learning the ABCs and 123s, but learning compassion, respect and how to get along with others you may not normally socialize with.
I wanted to homeschool my kids, but my 4 yr old and I clash when it comes to school. Anytime we try and do anything academic it ends badly and he does much better for others, so despite the fact I would like to homeschool Lance is much better off with someone else and he is so social he would go crazy at home with just the two of us.
I have pretty much done it all. I started homeschooling when my oldest reached school age, and continued for three years, including my younger kids when they were ready to begin. When the oldest was about to start third grade, our situation changed and I had to go back to work. (I was a single mom at the time, and couldn’t find a way to work and homeschool, so I sent her and her sisters to the local elementary school) Their original elementary was awesome, but unfortunately was closed three years later due to budget cuts and my kids were sent to other nearby schools. The other schools they were sent to were horrible, and my kids were intensely unhappy (they are wierdos and became the target of bullies and crazy teachers…) Finally I found a charter school for them and we haven’t looked back. This is their fourth year there, and they will go there until they graduate, if the school can continue to secure funding and remain open that long…(It’s a K-12 school, so even though I have 1 in high school and 2 in middle school, they all go to the same school, which has been so good for our family.)
As a person largely ruled by social behaviors, I wouldn’t opt for home schooling – nor do I have the patience for it – but I wish for my kids to have a social experience too… I hope to pick up the “knowledge slack” (if any) at home. I have a level of expectation that I expect… we’ll see how it goes. But I admire people who do – can’t be an easy task, at all. I couldn’t do it – I’d go crazy.
To tell you the truth, I do not have it in me to homeschool my children. I don’t have the passion or desire that it takes to want to do it. I would prefer to scope out a good school for my child and be involved in their classroom. It might have something to do with having a mother who was a teacher for 35 years or the fact that both my sisters are teachers.
Oh, how I LOVE that photo! And “medieval times”. Perfect choice of words.
Anyway.
As a teacher, I have seen very few amazing home schooled students and A LOT of very poor home schooled students. In only 10 years of teaching I have had four families come into the school system at my grade (3) and their children can not read.
To be done well, there has to be a huge commitment on the whole family. No, it can not be done an hour a day. No, you can’t take months off here and there. And appropriate curriculum can not be purchased as ‘busy books’ at Wal Mart.
However, there are amazing home schooled students out there who are very advanced and mature. I would imagine they would also be that way in a school system.
If I didn’t have (and want) to work, if we lived in the boonies and/or if I felt like it was the best thing for my kids I would home school in a heart beat. My working hours and lesson preparation time would be no different than my current teaching hours. I would also have to be very structured in my day. I think that would be very hard to do with my own kids in my own home. So cheers to those who pull it off with flying colors! I ,however, will probably enjoy watching the school bus rumble down my street with my children in it.
I was homeschooled until I was in 7th grade, when I decided to start public school. I was much more advanced in knowledge but I was not socially. I think I’ve managed to over come that in most aspects, not all though. I would love to homeschool my son but I see the benefit of a good school. I think it will depend on where we are in 2 years when it’s time to start. I don’t believe children need to be in school for 8 hours a day at 5 years old. It would be great if I had a group of friends that had the same age children and we could learn as a group at times.
I was home schooled for 4 years of my childhood, and although I didn’t hate it…I totally felt like I missed out socially. I always had my siblings and church friends/neighbors, but somehow, forever after I went back to regular schooling, I felt a bit “out of touch” with normal kids. (I was probably a tad more mature is all.) It is hard to balance out everything and one thing that suffered was our involvement in team sports. The whole homeschooling thing could be done well though, but I, like you, know that there would be a whole lot of yelling and pulling out hair and I just plain don’t think I want that kind of life! I tell myself that I’m good at other things and try not to beat myself up about the fact that I wouldn’t be their best teacher.
Jen, you were, of course, one of the exceptions! Remember your cool sweatshirts? 🙂
I have the exact same views as you. I know many MANY women who are homeschooling their children, and their kids are getting a much better education and turning out way more well-rounded, polite, and awesome than public school kids. (There’s also the exception of the kids who fall way to far behind and end up never graduating because their mom was too busy with other children and they end up living at home until they’re 35 because they’re so socially awkward – those stories are sad.)
That being said, I would be horrible at it as well. I know *my* kids are better off sent to school.
i’ve thought about homeschooling my second year old and she goes to a private catholic school. maybe that is her problem. i’m sending her to catholic school and it’s totally messing her up but then again, i would mess her up more. she would be using her fingers at 40 to do math if i was in charge.
I agree with you completely. I think homeschool is great and in a lot of cases, you could get a far superior education at home. A lot less classroom management, disciplining, moving ahead when you are ready and not having to wait for others to catch up.
But like you, I’m not going to homeschool (voluntarily). Abby is thriving at school, loves going. I’m going with the “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” approach. But should there be a need down the road, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second.
By the way, you knew me 10 years ago and I was homeschooled. Was there something you wanted to tell me about my lack of fashion and/or personality?