Thinking of home schooling my kids.

[JohnO]

Every time I sit down to write a cogent reply to this, life intervenes.

It's almost bedtime and I have two brain cells left, so I'm going to weigh in tomorrow, but I'm not ignoring you.

Me too. Have an early meeting tomorrow. Ugh!

Homeschooled 4. Last one finishing now.

Most beneficial thing we ever did was join a large homeschooling group. Activities every Friday. Summer & Winter Theater productions with kids filling all roles and stage work. Group field trips. Many activities year round e.g. Turkey Bowl Large touch football game the day after Thanksgiving. Enough participants to have 4-5 games running simultaneously.) Dances including a Silver & Gold Ball for high school grads home from college on Christmas break. Dad’s poker night. 👍

All the kids have accomplished quite a lot. Socialization was never an issue. Yeah you see that sometimes with homeschooled kids but I could also easily find plenty of weird, strange and anti-social conventionally schooled kids.

Oldest finished High School in 3 years at home. Graduated at the top of her class from Hillsdale College and while at Hillsdale got admitted to Kings College, Oxford University and did a semester in England. She completed a Masters of Fine Arts and is teaching now.

I’ll end with this for now. Years back my wife emailed the admissions department at USMA West Point and asked if they accept homeschoolers with Mom’s transcripts. The response: “That’s exactly what we are looking for.”

[JV_]

The big catch is it’s really fucking hard.

I think it's more time consuming than hard. It's much easier and faster if you choose to go with a boxed curriculum, rather than try to do it on your own. For the stay-at-home parent, it is a full time job.

If you have kids that are even slightly motivated, they can finish a home-school day in a small fraction of time they'd be in public school.

[JV_]

Socialization was never an issue.

IME, the socialization argument is largely a chicken and egg problem. Are they home-schooled because the social side of public school wasn't working out?

Are there kids who are home-schooled who are neglected in some way (ie. the parents aren't really home-schooling)? Sure, I don't doubt it. But it's not the norm.

[fixer]

Starting the home-school journey right now. Following with interest.

[willie]

I've been up all night and have not yet gone to bed. Though being exhausted, I will comment. I did not see your child's grade level but got the impression he is in elementary school. I did not recall comments indicating that you have the whole picture. States rate school districts. Yours will have a rating. You might inquire. Too, achievement test scores are public information. Your child's scores will indicate level of mastery in reading, writing, and math. Is your child in special education? If so, he has been tested by certified specialists. If he does display attention deficit and hyperactivity traits, these tests will verify their existence. Medical doctors prescribe based on these test results. If your child shows this behavior at school, he also will show it at home when required to perform.

I think you need more data and suggest that you first meet with your son's counselor and then visit with his principal. You can visit your son at school and have lunch with him. You can bring food from home. You could have his doctor write that the boy be allowed to have snacks.

Demographics determine much about what takes place at school. That might be a consideration. Let me urge you not to make negative comments about the school in your child's presence. They will color his view. Further, he will feed the same information back to you.

If your son is in special education, then he has special needs. Law requires schools to meet them.

[JohnO]

Having homeschooled 4 kids I can say everyone is different. The two girls were more motivated and only required occasional guidance. The boys well the supervision there was a few notches higher.

Our journey into homeschooling started when my daughter (oldest) got sick. It's a long story I won't bore you. During 5th grade she was unable to attend school so we adapted and overcame. When High School time came along she asked if she could try going back to school. We let her go. Within the 2nd week she came to us and said, "I know you didn't plan for me to be homeschooled this year but they are so far behind me in school that it would be a waste of my time to stay there. Can I resume at home?" And we did.

We pulled my oldest son from school after we got established homeschooling his sister. He finished 3rd grade in the school system. My youngest two have never seen the inside of what they called "prison for kids" (school building).

One of the things we were able to do was take advantage of school system. My daughter was able to take selected classes at the high school. She attended Vocal Jazz and Chorus. I'm told that varies by state how the laws regarding homeschooling work. Connecticut lets you opt in. Others are not so accommodating. I can almost bet she was counted a regular student by the town (using minimal resources). Only my oldest did this the other three had no desire.

A standard question my wife and I always got: Are you or your spouse a teacher? "No, anyone with a decent amount of intelligence can do it."

To be fair (not to brag) my oldest has something special going on. She always was way ahead of the curve and she would have been successful no matter where she received her education. Due to the fact that she was in the school system and through some of the standardized tests she took she was invited to take the SAT in 5th grade. In 5th grade she scored higher than most of the high school juniors taking it at the normal time. One of the essays she wrote for the college admission process was published by a national newspaper. I'll never forget the look on the face of the admission counselor at Hillsdale when my daughter said, "I wrote an essay for the admission process at another school. It answers one of your essay prompts can I submit it here? The counselor said "yes". Then my daughter said, "your requirement is 3000 words or less, my essay is 4000+ but it was published in ..." The counselor: "We want to see that in it original form, can you also edit it down to satisfy our requirement?" She did, they got both and I knew she was In like Flynn.

[JAD]

I'll never forget the look on the face of the admission counselor at Hillsdale .

As Shi'ite Catholic as I am, I would be tickled pink if we could get into Hillsdale. It's not in the cards, probably, but it's a stretch goal. For me. I think the kid is torn between Benedictine and clown school.

[JohnO]

As Shi'ite Catholic as I am, I would be tickled pink if we could get into Hillsdale. It's not in the cards, probably, but it's a stretch goal. For me. I think the kid is torn between Benedictine and clown school.

A friend works at Benedictine. My son graduated from Thomas Aquinas College and my daughter currently attends Franciscan University.

[JAD]

IME, the socialization argument is largely a chicken and egg problem..

There's also a very important question of what they're being socialized towards. My kid spends more than half of his waking hours at school. I can work really hard to instill values and discipline and have it completely f'd by a cute chick with daddy issues. Homeschooling frees you up to have much greater control over the exposure the kid receives to values that differ from yours, and a much greater ability to frame that exposure in its proper context. I can sit in front of the record player with the kid and talk about the difference between Tom Araya's costume party satanism, Neil Peart's slowly evolving Freidenker persona, and Geezer Butler's heartfelt Christianity. I think that's a superior formative experience to sitting next to a kid carving pentagrams in his arm in third grade.

[Cory]

I was home schooled from 5th grade until I received my GED at 16 years old. I then attended a local college at 16, took 15 credits and had a 3.91 GPA.

My parents homeschooled my brother and I due to concerns with what was being taught socially in school. The school allowed my brother to pass grades without learning. It came to a head when I was punished for dealing with a bully the way he dealt with me.

My Mom used a canned curriculum from Abeka books (Pensacola Christian Academy) plus curriculum she made. There were assignments, reports, quizes, tests. Mom cared. So if I didn't score 90% or above I had to restudy and take a make up test Mom created. Additionally, we would periodically have extra classes like learning to spot wildlife sign in the woods. Or how to balance a budget and checkbook. Or how to cook basic meals (man, I was bad at this) or how to change brakes. I did fine on the GED (my brother struggled and took it twice. He is definitely a hands on learner. He now works in construction for the county - but extremely excells at PC tech stuff.), did fine in college (at 16) on my ASVAB, and later in college getting my degree (2 year. Quit just shy of a 4 year. After the military I was a bit to independent to play games with professors)

Social intelligence is often discussed about homeschooling. I had neighbors as friends and was pretty normal. The difference was I had a few good friends, not a lot of mediocre "friends". While I'm a bit direct, and kind of an asshole, that's not really due to homeschooling. Many like to champion homeschoolers as dumb, socially inept, slobs. But how many people who were homeschooled have they interacted with an had no idea?

There are downfalls. I really wanted to play sports. Wrestling and football. I couldn't. My local school district found out the current rules let homeschoolers play when my older brother played football. They quickly changed the rules after and I wasn't allowed. I was at times lonely, and wish I had more chances to meet girls. I'm pretty happy with my life now, and look back on this as early teenage angst now. At the time it was difficult, but it's likely all coming of age is.

It was hard financially for my parents. Dad worked full time, through the years mom worked part time and full time. We weren't rich. Some of that is because of homeschool, some is our area was economically depressed. And we werent from money.

There are positives. I was prepared for the real world with stuff some of my public school friends werent. I was taught about books AND life. I could prioritize and manage time well ahead of my peers. My family is incredibly close. My brother and I are very different, but very close. My Mom and Dad are some of my closest friends. I can talk and confide in them. Now that I have a family of my own, they often do the same.

Often I woke in the morning, did my school assignments, did my chores, and then it was 1 o' clock. When my buddies got home from school I would go ride bikes or go hiking. Pretty normal kid in general.

I'm not an expeet, but if you have questions about it feel free to PM me.

-Cory