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[quote=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. [/quote]

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