After all these years of homeschooling, my kids asked to go to public school. We decided to let them try it out. So far, so good (only a few issues). I miss homeschooling a lot. I think their behavior is changing a little bit, so if it goes downhill, they know they will be homeschooling again. Pray for us!
I was going to say...pretend you didn't hear them. But, I guess that advice won't work. :lol: You are brave. I only let my kids venture into public school a little in high school...I'm hoping my youngest won't even have the desire. I hope it all goes well.
Mine are in there now too.. Dd13's first year back after 6 years of homeschooling and so far so good.. She's making TONS of friends.. He attitude is different, but that might just be her age.
In homeschooling communities (especially) we hear a lot of negatives about the quality of education in public schools. I personally don't see that. The public school friends my kids have, and my step kids who go to public school, are learning a lot! Being an involved parent is more important than how they are educated. Being involved keeps kids out of trouble, and you can always reinforce what they are learning at home too. As a kid, I don't remember one dinner where my parents weren't quizzing me on something I had on a test coming up....even in 12th grade! I believe my strong study habits came from their involvement, and helped me graduate with honors. Just use your time differently now....volunteer at their school, and be in the know on what they are learning so you can help them after school. Good luck!! I hope it goes well for everyone!
My 6 year old has asked a couple of times to go to Public school, mainly because he has a friend that attends and he thinks he's missing out. We just outline the negatives and the positives of going, and thankfully since he's such a Momma's Boy he doesn't want to leave yet. lol! You're very brave, I think! I hope it all goes well! I think some kids do a lot better than others in the public school system and it all has to do with parent involvement, and personality. Good luck!!
My son asked the same this weekend, so I asked him why, since he has done so well while homeschooled, and it's all about making friends. Because of his ADHD, I am nervous about it, because he may wish to do so now, but once the novelty wears off, I fear he may revert to his old acting out behaviors. I told him I will consider it when he is ready for high school, but he has to show me that he can handle it. I also advised him that as a homeschooler, he is allowed to take part in the various school activities, like teams and dances. We are exploring that avenue now.
It's so interesting how kids are different. My kids NEVER ask to do this. I guess they have enough friends in PS that complain about it alllllll the time, so they figure what they got is better than that. In fact my 9th Grader says "You're not putting me in school, ARE YOU?". Of course, we live in a VERY densely populated area and the graduating class of the high school my children would go to has a graduating class of over 1000 kids. EEEEEK!
Krista, my ds would have stayed home happily but dh went and paid the full year up front when I mentioned we were thinking of it, then they changed the teacher and we changed our mind but the tuition is already paid so... ds is having fun so far, they use SOS and he has a real person for an ART class that give shim a ton of home work ( I never had so much in high school art!) and he has PE, and chapel and stuff that is just for fun ... he has other home school kids some even from our Co Op group in our class. Its nice, but I think next year we may stay home.
I know a lot of public schoolers that ask to home school. It is extremely rare for a public school parent to let their kids make that decision. Public school parents generally quickly say no and make it clear that it won't be happening.
Interesting that we let them have a greater input as to how they will be schooled. *Maybe* we feel a twinge of thinking they are missing out on something?
My daughter told me she wanted to go to "real school" in seventh grade because "she needed a life". LOL. After a lot of consideration, we let her try it, and it has been a really good fit. She's a senior in HS now and has loved public school. Teens go through that whole psychological crisis of needing to establish autonomous identity, privacy, close interpersonal relationships outside the family. For some, maybe that's just too hard to accomplish at home with a helicopter mom? Very much depends on the kid, I think (and the parents). I know a lot of teens who have been very happy homeschooling all the way through. But mine made it pretty clear...she was not one of them. LOL.
*Maybe* we feel a twinge of thinking they are missing out on something? Well, they are missing out on something (but the same can be said of public school kids) I imagine most of us went to regular school. We can't help but have some fond memories. Valentine's shoe boxes and Halloween parties and playing marbles with your best girlfriend in the sand under the jungle gym, growing a seed in a milk carton to give to your mom on Mother's Day, show and tell....there were some really great memories!!! But imagine the stuff our kids will remember! My kid will remember watching surgeries, and taking the train into Chicago to spend all day at museums, long library days of reading, cooking dinner for a math project, meeting Dad for lunch most days, Seeing Grandma and Grandpa and the crazy cousins every week, time to do things, time to draw and write and put on plays and build snow dinosaurs painted green, time to learn about anything you want to, research it, get excited, take photos, document a bird's nest, make mousetrap cars, enter contests, create newspapers, do experiments! Ultimately, there's more than one way to raise a kid. All methods have their strengths and weaknesses. No matter how you do it, you'll always have victories, and a few regrets. It's all good. It's just life. Do whatever works, and most of all...Enjoy it!
I pulled my DS home for school for 5th grade. Even up until a couple of years ago (he's 30 now), he couldn't decide whether homeschooling was good or bad and was very back and forth on the matter. Then his DS did public kindy, and started first grade. WHOA! suddenly after his first public school report card and seeing his papers that came home weekly leading up to that, "Grandma School" became THE way to an education! No doubt about it! He's determined, too, that his second son will never set foot in a public school. He's 4 right now...
Lindina, can I ask what was objectionable about the report card and papers sent home? Totally cool if you'd rather not share, I won't take it personally. But if you do care to share, I'm interested in hearing your experience.
The boy had failing grades on his first 1st-grade report card. The papers that came home showed how ridiculous the ps curriculum was. Well, first, the school had promised parents that the kids would learn to read in kindergarten. Tons of sight words, very little phonics. Needless to say, the boy didn't learn to read in kindergarten. Then his first grade papers that came home each week were rife with typos (workbook pages directly from whatever major publisher they were using), most of those with failing marks. Then there was the "robust vocabulary" that included words like sweltering and invigorating, and other polysyllables he was expected to read and put into blanks in sentences, when he couldn't yet read "Jan had a sock" or write his own last name. (And they only had him writing his 3-letter nickname instead of his 3-syllable actual first name although I had him writing the whole thing when he was 4.) And the notes saying how he had not done his homework, when his mother was sitting with him every single day doing it with him. He loved kindergarten and his teacher, but from day one of first grade he came home saying his teacher hated him. (And she did.) Then there was the bullying on the bus and on the playground - he's tall and very slimly built for his age, so he was targeted by the boys from one grade higher, both years, perhaps because they thought he'd been retained in grade before (and was therefore "stupid") and was lying about his age. Or just looked as though he couldn't fight back. Currently, they're living in his mom's hometown, and the first grade teacher was one who had taught both his mom and her brother at that very same school. Possibly she knew who his (mother's) family was and had low expectations for his success in school. Possibly this older lady still hadn't figured out how to manage wiggly boys. I don't know. My son tried to be "the concerned parent" and go to the school to talk, see if he could find out what the problem was, but the principal just blew him off. Then the first report card came home and that was the last straw. They live too far away to come and go daily (about an hour away from us), so as hard as it was for them to do it, they agreed that DGS should come and live with us so he can do Grandma School. He goes home every other weekend, and holidays and summers, except for events like Cub Scout stuff and VBS and such with us. This year he's in 3rd grade. They're hoping to be able to arrange it to move near us before the second son enters school. My DIL resisted the pressures of her family insisting that he go to pre-K this current year, and decided to keep him home, and she and DS are adamant at this point that if they don't get moved by that time, he won't go to ps kindy either. Every now and then, when DGS's being obstinate or obstreperous and giving me a hard time about doing his work, I'll ask him (seriously) whether he wants to go back home and go to public school again, and I get back an emphatic and immediate NO!
Good gravy! Sounds like a terrible school system. I'd be particularly concerned about the bullying, both by the kids, and the first grade teacher. That sounds awful. Sorry for your grandson's bad experience.
I guess I'm in the minority. My daughters' last day of school is this Friday. I gave them the choice of if they wanted to continue at public school or homeschool. You'd have thought I was giving them the choice of getting a puppy or a pile of rotten socks. I have no idea if they quite even UNDERSTAND what homeschooling is ALL about, but I think they(especially my oldest) was so unhappy, that any other option would have been better than what she is currently doing. There were times she did ask(when she first met other homeschooling kids) and I did say "No. That won't be happening." But I cannot guarantee in the future if they ask to go back to public school that I won't have the same reaction Time will tell...
Lindina, that is just AWFUL! We are pulling primarily because of the huge class sizes here. 37 in 2nd grade the 2nd half of the day. 32 in the morning for math and grammar-and half the time they "don't have time for math."
