Home Schooling - What are the pros & cons? Your experience please.

[Anonymous]

I am a 31 year old woman that was home schooled for the back end of elementary school. Of course at this point that was 20 years ago or more but maybe my experience as an adult can help.

The first year I was home schooled we have a v firm schedule. We had a home school partner family that did all of the science and math, my mom did all the language arts and history and french and Mom outsourced spanish. We worked from about 9am-1pm each day and then we had to go outside and play in the woods until dinner or so. I grew up on a 100 acre farm so we'd explore for hours. The next year the schedule went out the window a lot more. Sure we had math time etc but my mom got really experimental. I took flying lessons that year and flew planes all over our state. I went to live with my family in france for a month. I was on a really competitive swim team. I rode my horse all the time and mucked out the barn a lot. I raised a litter of kittens. I was outside a lot. I really missed school though, so after two years of this they put me back in the local private school and I did very well there.

A few notes on the pros/cons as I reflect on the long arch of time....I have gaps in my knowledge/education that tripped me up a ton until I got out of the school system. The SATs were a bear. I remember having to watch internet videos about complex fractions when I was in college bc we just never covered that part of math. Same with complex long division. I never took advanced math classes. This was bc of my interests but also bc I hated it when I was homeschooled and I was willful enough that after a while I wasn't forced to do it. That parent/child dynamic of whining and tantrums shouldn't be overlooked. And my mom has a backbone of steel, for what it's worth. That woman doesn't take shit. But I still ended up with large gaps of knowledge through being a total jerk who refused to do my work.

Socially, my home school buddies fell into two categories--hardline evangelical Duggar types and complete hippies who prayed to the sun and meditated on the directions (north, south, east, west. I swear to god). If I had to choose my parents were def in the hippie side of things but there was no comfortable place my family fell into. It's one of the biggest reasons I wanted to go back to school. But at the same time? Esp as we reflect on the election? Knowing people who were so so different and learning to go with it was so important and when I think about all these Trump voters I think about these right wing Christians I used to hang out with and feel like I can connect in some ways.

More broadly, homeschooling instilled in me a passion for life and learning and being interested and interesting. When I got to college and learned people were off to be accountant or lawyers but with no interest in doing so, just doing it bc they didn't know what else to do, I was so shocked. Do the work! Peel back the layers! Find out what's interesting in the world and carve your niche! Now, years later, I have had plenty of career bumps along the way but I have had a fascinating time, and for what it's worth I now work for the finance sector in a very niche area and make six figures. I've really always followed my heart when it comes to my intellectual passions and I learned that from being forced to ask myself, what DO I want to learn? And collaborating with my mom to get me there when I was only 9-10.

Finally, the only other thought I would share is that it's easy to be like, ok now we're a homeschool family, and plan on doing it until a certain age or something. But you can choose to do it for one year and have certain goals in mind. I fell back into the swing of things pretty easily bc I went back to school in 6th grade when everyone else was also new. You don't HAVE to commit for your child's entire schooling.

[Anonymous]

100% depends on the parent. Its almost 100% pros with the right parents and pretty dangerous without. There is always the issue of "socialization," but that is, once again, something the parent can essentially handle.

[Anonymous]

A few years back, as a nanny, I worked part-time for two families with kids the same exact ages. In the am I worked with a HS family and I did after school care for kids in a top public school in NoVA (and one of the parents was high up at NAEYC, so definitely a good public school).

I took both sets of kids, separately, to the Folklife Festival. The homeschool kids were fascinated and asked lots of questions, jumped in and tried new things and learned a lot. The public school kids asked, "So, like, what are we supposed to do?" They looked at some of the exhibitions, but no questions and the only thing they engaged in was the worksheets in the kid's tent. They just didn't get how to engage with something that wasn't currated in some way.

Now that my own kids are school-aged, that is a big part of why we are homeschooling. I want them to think creatively and not wait for someone to tell them what is and isn't interesting. We also really love the schedule. We go to museums, travel, etc. at times when the rest of the DC area is at school. We have some homeschool buddies as well as church friends so we get some socialization in through that and some from extracurriculars (mostly sports/language right now). I also sign them up for summer camps. So we sort of have a reverse school year where our summers are more structures and the rest of the year is less so. It gives me a chance to plan and research for the following year and it exposes them to more of the lifestyle that most kids their age are living with so they can function well in that world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A few years back, as a nanny, I worked part-time for two families with kids the same exact ages. In the am I worked with a HS family and I did after school care for kids in a top public school in NoVA (and one of the parents was high up at NAEYC, so definitely a good public school).

I took both sets of kids, separately, to the Folklife Festival. The homeschool kids were fascinated and asked lots of questions, jumped in and tried new things and learned a lot. The public school kids asked, "So, like, what are we supposed to do?" They looked at some of the exhibitions, but no questions and the only thing they engaged in was the worksheets in the kid's tent. They just didn't get how to engage with something that wasn't currated in some way.

Now that my own kids are school-aged, that is a big part of why we are homeschooling. I want them to think creatively and not wait for someone to tell them what is and isn't interesting. We also really love the schedule. We go to museums, travel, etc. at times when the rest of the DC area is at school. We have some homeschool buddies as well as church friends so we get some socialization in through that and some from extracurriculars (mostly sports/language right now). I also sign them up for summer camps. So we sort of have a reverse school year where our summers are more structures and the rest of the year is less so. It gives me a chance to plan and research for the following year and it exposes them to more of the lifestyle that most kids their age are living with so they can function well in that world.

The folklife festival? Seriously that place is a mess. Plenty of kids ask questions whether homeschool or not but for the most part the public school kids are attending on the weekend with everyone else visiting DC and there are timed talks to attend. If we can attend a booth that even has worksheets left on the weekends its a plus.

[Anonymous]

But way to categorize public school kids as blank worksheet fillers. Your entire description is too scripted. Not buying it as truthful.

[Anonymous]

we are thinking of homeschooling too. i think i would do it (dad).
this would be a tough place to live on one income but itmight be worth it.

i am not expert but i feel like school works better for sedentary females. sorry if that is rude
school was wasted on me, i just wanted to start problems to break the boredom.
my wife did not learn anything in school either. but the social part is important.

now when i work in HS in Moco i just see the kids fooling around, most are so unfocused. they could not learn in 30 min of one on one a whole day's worth of class work . so why is school 8 hours?

teaching kids to stand in a single file line

[Anonymous]

New poster, wondering if anyone has advice on pros and cons for kids who are easily bored? My daughter is ahead at school and bored silly in that setting, but at least she has the benefit of being out of the house and interacting with other kids. I’ve considered homeschooling for the last year of elementary school, partly to get around the school boredom problem and even more to try and instill a love of learning. Right now, she sees schoolwork as something to be finished with the minimum of effort and as quickly as possible. I’d love to give her more challenge and get her more interested. But ... what if that doesn’t work? Could she end up still resenting schoolwork AND stuck in our boring condo day after day? Will I just trade forcing her to get to boring school for forcing her to do her boring homeschooling activities?

I know homeschooling families partly get around that possibility by planning lots of activities, but I’m chronically ill in a way that often makes it difficult to get out of the house. I’d rather plan for a worst-case scenario and be pleasantly surprised (or plan for it, get scared away, and stay in school!) than make an easy decision but find ourselves trapped and hating it for a whole year. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hi new poster,

We have 3 kids that were in public and we pulled them out so I think I can answer your question.

First off there is A LOT to do for homeschoolers. Your daughter can be with groups of kids every day if she likes. Facebook and Google make it so easy to find classes and get togethers, there truly is something going on every day and night. Worrying about socialization is a thing of the past in our area.

That said, that means that you will be driving her to all these things which can get old. For us it works because even if we take a day off my kids still have their siblings to play with but I can see how it would become tough on a parent to make sure an only child is getting enough to do.

One big change I have seen in my kids is that they get engrossed in things now that they have time to. Because we have a lot of free time they have developed interests I know they wouldn't have had in public simply because there was no time to "wander." Maybe that will happen for your daughter too.

Hope this is helpful. It's great that you are examining all kinds of options.