For the homeschooling crowd

theultimatesak

What was/is the main reason you decided to homeschool your child? Educational philosophy? Social reasons? Religious beliefs? Safety concerns?

Just curious.

PipSqueak0313

I homeschooled dd due to educational concerns, and ds1 because he was being bullied so much at school that his counselor couldn't address the issues related to the abuse from his father. His counselor was begging me to get him out of the school and since we were in a rural area no other school was a viable option. I am considering homeschool for ds2, especially his younger years, partially due to fears of him not being able to keep up with his peers and that causing academic and social problems.

Aurora_Borealis

DD is only 2, so we aren't homeschooling at this point, but we are seriously considering it when the time comes.

The public schools in our city, though improving, are pretty bad. And the good private schools cost more than $20k/year. Neither of these options are terribly appealing to our family. Moving to the suburbs for better schools isn't really an option, either, since a) we don't want to and b) homes in significantly better districts that are also close enough to DH's job cost $2 million (so we couldn't even if we wanted to).

So in a weird sort of way we are considering home schooling for financial reasons. Or at least price/quality reasons.

Unknown

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girlmama83

I don't think I will be able to as I work full time, but when H is older I would love nothing more than to homeschool for. Reasons being safety and social. Working with kids in a school setting has opened my eyes to a whole new world that I would prefer her not to have to be a part of.

countrycotton

DH and I have planned to home school long before we ever even thought of having kids. For us it's for lots of reasons. Religious- I don't want my child not to be told not to pray. Social- there are lots of crummy parents, who let their kids be awful. I want her raised to respect and have respect shown in return. Political- I don't want my child being " brainwashed" by any group in a position to push an agenda. Quantity of education- schools here are just okay. But my niece never puts pen to paper, everything is on a computer. Financial- we can afford to home school, or private school. But I have the same problems with most private schools as public. Competition - I believe in winners and losers, you have to learn to lose, and win. If every kid gets a ribbon then it's nothing more than a ribbon. Yep, I'm one of the "crazy" ones.

SkyBee

We plan on homeschooling.  The main reason is educational.  Our district is in bad shape and we do not have access to a private school. I also am very unhappy with common core and testing. Other reasons include social aspects and safety. 

SkyBee

countrycotton said:

DH and I have planned to home school long before we ever even thought of having kids. For us it's for lots of reasons. Religious- I don't want my child not to be told not to pray. Social- there are lots of crummy parents, who let their kids be awful. I want her raised to respect and have respect shown in return. Political- I don't want my child being " brainwashed" by any group in a position to push an agenda. Quantity of education- schools here are just okay. But my niece never puts pen to paper, everything is on a computer. Financial- we can afford to home school, or private school. But I have the same problems with most private schools as public. Competition - I believe in winners and losers, you have to learn to lose, and win. If every kid gets a ribbon then it's nothing more than a ribbon. Yep, I'm one of the "crazy" ones.

I pretty much agree with this entire post as well. I have discovered I have issues with institutionalized schools in general.

unaveragejane

I taught in public schools in our area for 9 years, so I have seen the good and the ugly sides of what we have to offer around here. Thankfully we have some good elementary schools, but the middle and high schools scare me a lot. They are super crowded IMO, and there was a gang-related shooting at one of the schools we're zoned for. DH and I both came from very small public schools, and we're hoping to get into that kind of system before the boys are in 5th grade. Otherwise we're doing private school or home school for safety reasons. I know that bad things can happen in any size school, but I think it's a lot harder to hide drugs/gangs/violence/crazy in a small school where teachers know you, your friends, habits, family, etc. In my school, I could get away with NOTHING. My teachers knew exactly what my parents expected of me, and they were happy to hold me to that standard.

countrycotton

I understand where your coming from @stringy813‌. I think most homeschoolers or at least ALL that we know are activity involved in homeschool groups, dance, sports, scouting, ect. That lends to ensureing a full range of exposure. We also have a pretty diverse group of friends, ranging from very conservative to very progressive, also a pretty full range of economic status. With anything, public school, privet, homeschool you kids will only be as exposed to the world as you allow.

SkyBee

stringy813 said:

SkyBee said:

countrycotton said:

DH and I have planned to home school long before we ever even thought of having kids. For us it's for lots of reasons. Religious- I don't want my child not to be told not to pray. Social- there are lots of crummy parents, who let their kids be awful. I want her raised to respect and have respect shown in return. Political- I don't want my child being " brainwashed" by any group in a position to push an agenda. Quantity of education- schools here are just okay. But my niece never puts pen to paper, everything is on a computer. Financial- we can afford to home school, or private school. But I have the same problems with most private schools as public. Competition - I believe in winners and losers, you have to learn to lose, and win. If every kid gets a ribbon then it's nothing more than a ribbon. Yep, I'm one of the "crazy" ones.

I pretty much agree with this entire post as well. I have discovered I have issues with institutionalized schools in general.

Part of me would love to homeschool... Mainly for the educational enrichment side and so that we can have more family learning experiences. There is too much testing going on in public schools and its not actually getting anyone anywhere. But thats a whole other issue.

But I also feel as if there are real world lessons and experiences that are hard to replicate unless you purposefully seek out other homeschool groups with a range of different families in them.

For example I totally agree that I want my kids to respect other people, and to learn that they don't always get to win, that they aren't always right, etc. My question is how you will teach them to be respectful of, for example, people who do not agree with their political leanings, or their religion? Especially if those people don't express that in a nice way-as is often the case. One of the hardest things to do in life is to be respectful to those who don't respect us- and I'm wondering how you will teach them that if you don't expose them to different people with different views than your own? Their political party may not always win, and they will need to learn to carry on in life and adapt (without necessarily compromising their values).

I realize those are bigger concepts for older kids- but they start young with every day interactions.

I agree it is important to expose children to diversity. They will be much more exposed in our area if we homeschool. We travel a lot as a family, we will be doing a lot of hands on experience like going to the capitol, museums, etc. If our kids were in our schools for 7 hours a day they would be exposed to nothing. I live in Utah in the county with the highest percentage of LDS in the country. I went to school here. Everyone is LDS. Everyone is Republican. There was not one African American, Hispanic, Asian, any race aside from Caucasian in my school. The academics take a second to sports. We have one high school with about 500 students grade 9-12 and yet we have a brand new indoor football field. They only offer 3 AP courses. The music and arts are considered least important. I can give my kids so much more. We can provide our kids with a rich a broad educational experience.  I would be robbing them of many opportunities if I sent them to public school in my district. Socialization is the least of my worries I have discovered that even in different districts, homeschool students are more prepared for real life and well adjusted compared to their public schooled peers.

unaveragejane

Chickypoo2468 said:

Oh. And the testing. One thing that makes me feel good about our decision is around test time, when all the teachers in my fb feed are complaining about how inaccurate and pointless it is.

Yeah, I was required by the state to test non-verbal kids on their oral reading ability. That was always fun (not). "Okay, Johnny, I need you to read this passage to me. If you get stuck on a word I will help you. Try to remember what you read because I will ask you questions at the end." Then we would sit in complete silence for the allotted time. We had to do it 3x a year and practice weekly...because it made sense to be spending time on that rather than actually getting them to learn to communicate.

Robi1

Definitely educational philosophy. There are very few schools I would consider better able to educate my children than I can, and they're nowhere near me. I was personally homeschooled, I have an M.ed and years of teaching experience, and plenty of resources. It also seems silly to me to send my kids to school with someone else teaching them so that I can teach someone else's kids. I see no reason not to keep them home.