Why do we homeschool? Big picture question

For me, school was a positive experience and I did well. Up until I taught (long-term sub, 2 years) in PS, I thought HSing was for oddballs, etc. But that subbing experience is what led me to HS. By the time I was ending the 2-year stint, I found out I was expecting my first baby and I had already decided that I'd HS my kids. It was a combo of what I saw academically and socially that led me to my decision.

 

This is the biggest reason that we decided to homeschool. I think my dds are some of the coolest people to be with. Part of my descion was also based on my own school career. We live in the same school district that I went to school. I did ps until my junior year. Then my parents decided to hs. It was the best experiance of my life. Our faith weighs on our choice of curriculum but we mostley decided to hs for the freedom it offered us, as well as being able to spend time with our girls. They are only children once, and for so short a time. I don't want to miss any of it.

 

That's a pretty accurate description of why we HS, as well. So many people assume that since we are Christians who Homeschool we do so for religious reasons. I won't pretend that moral issues are an added benefit for us, but they were by no means the reason we chose/choose to homeschool.

But we use a Christian curriculum because, if they're home anyway, it might as well be a faith-based education. lol.

 

It really does blow my mind when I think of how much time PS takes kids away from their parents. . . and at such an early age. And to think there are proponents of mandatory preschool!!! The time does fly way too fast.

 

I am new to homeschooling, we'll be starting our first year next month. My son is 10 and just completed 4th grade at the local public school here in Maryland.

We finally decided to homeschool out of total frustration with the ps. My son is a very cheerful, happy little guy, who also struggles with frustration. If things aren't exactly the way he thinks they should be, he gets frustrated and starts crying or gets "bossy". At home, we've found that the best way to deal with it is to nip it immediately and if he goes in to melt-down mode, to send him to his room to calm down. Usually by the time he makes it to his room, he's ready to come back down and talk :roll: It's really a non-issue at home because his father and I don't allow the behavior and he responds well to the discipline and can usually calm down and deal with whatever is making him frustrated.

At school on the other hand, there is a complete lack of discipline and they were completely unprepared to deal with issues that in my opinion, were fairly normal and age-based. No one in my family has a problem keeping Brody in line, no one in my church has a problem keeping him in line. Children need discipline. I was 10 once myself (I wonder about these teachers though) and in my experience, a child will get away with what he can. He is, after all, only a child.

From Kindergarten through this school year we have gone around and around with his succession of teachers, fielding phone calls at least weekly about Brody's "behavior". This year it came to a head and I was receiving so many calls that I was starting to feel like I just didn't like my child anymore, it had me so stressed. We were called in to have a meeting with the vice principal and their counsellor and were pretty much ordered to have him evaluated by a child psychologist. Now mind you, this was over things like calling out without raising his hand, keeping his desk messy, not paying attention...in general, things that children do. So I took him to a child psychologist with the only goal being to get the school off my back. Guess what the diagnosis was? He's 10. That's it. He's a kid, he'll grow up.

The next week his teacher asked me to come and sit in class and "see what his behavior is like at school". So for two days I sat in the back of the class, didn't say a word, and just read a book. Brody was the most well-behaved child in the class. After the second day, the teacher came up to me and said "I can't believe it, he didn't put one foot out of line the whole time you were here!" I replied "yes, that's because he's afraid of me, perhaps if he were afraid of you, you would have the class under control". Now when I say "afraid", I don't mean my child fears being around me, I mean that he is afraid of getting in trouble with mom. He respects me, he does what he's told, and he behaves like a normal, goofy, loving little boy who occasionally gets in trouble like any other kid. There is no discipline at the school, no respect for adults, no control. And it's getting worse every day and we can see that "out in the real world".

It was at that point that I decided that he would never set foot in the public school again. I WILL raise a child who respects adults, and learns to control himself and solve his problems in a Christian manner. Since we made the decision, a huge weight has come off and we have been enjoying the heck out of our child again. And he is excited about it too, because he certainly wasn't happy being in trouble all the time for being a child.

*Oh, and as far as academic standards...when I had to tell one of the teachers that no, a bat is not a kind of bird, I knew that there were some big problems!

 

I have to chuckle and interject here. This so reminds me of my dmil who insisted to my dds that the white man forced the indians to live in tepees. This is the woman who questions our choice of education for the girls. My dh responded to her by asking for her documented proof of this.:lol: She of course could not produce any.:roll:

 

My main instructor at Bowling Green became upset at me because I can't roll my tongue. It's genetic, and I know for sure I can't do it, because I always envied those who can. (BTW, Carl has the gene, and all three of my kids can do it!). When I told her this, she became REALLY upset with me. Later, I was in ANOTHER class dealing with "anatomy of the speech mechanism". We were discussing muscles in the tongue, and he asked how many could roll their tongue, then addeded, "But if you can't, don't worry about it. It means you don't have the gene." So I asked about documentation for that. He thought I was questioning HIM, so I explained that another instructor had gotten upset with me. "Who was that?" he asked. I told him. He sighed and said, "FIGURES!!!" So ignorance among teachers continues even into college!

 

Jackie, you are now responsible for my son playing with his tongue all day...I can roll mine but I honestly don't know if my hubby can (he's out of town). I showed Brody and it's going to drive him nuts practicing

 

Anything to help, lol!!!

 

We homeschool for a lot of reason but the main ones are that I can't even describe how much I hate the ps system here. The other reason is that I want my kids to have an actual education instead of that half warmed over junk they feed the kids at the ps. My OS graduated from public high school this year and I was horrified that he could not pass the algebra ½ placement test from Saxon. I don’t even want to get into how awful of a job they did with my special needs son.

I still have one son in a public high school. He wanted to stay and graduate although it goes against my better judgment. I would like to pull him out of there sometimes. I let him stay because I felt it was his choice.

I have many other reasons, like the liberal agenda that our public school pushes onto the kids. I can’t tell you how many times this year I have been livid at the slanted way that some of the teachers teach. Not only that, but the lack of control they have at that school. Several crimes have been committed at that school and it gives me all the more reason to want to homeschool. I just think the kids deserve better than that public school system.

 

I wanted to hs all this while but DH...

Going thru Child Psycology course myself and learning from the people in the bible has given me the conviction that I should educate my own DC. Reasons?

Elementary and Jr high are formation years for children and giving them solid foundation esp moral values should be from their parents and not teachers nor maids etc
In the bible Joseph was hs by his father (given solid foundation) and when he was sold to become slave in Egypt, he trust God (followed what has been thought by his father even though he was away from Dad) he succeeded eventually from a slave to the Pharoah's (king) right hand man! He saves his family too from famine.
I would be happy that after guiding and nurturing my DC, they will not waver from obeying God.
I suggest hs to my DH even before my eldest DD started Grade 1 but DH disagree. (Not sure whether he has no confidence in me or he thinks nothing wrong sending DC to PS since everyone else does). Deal will be I hs till Kindergarten only.
I had no choice but to sent DD to PS. Year after year I pray to God for DH to change his mind. Year after year I throw the idea for discussion.
I started to see -ve effect to my DD, traumatised by fierce teacher. I felt Im closer to my DC when I hs them. Understand them too. I could teach them following their pace.
Then came second DD, had to be sent to PS. My heart ached when I see them tired, not enthusiastic to learn, learn nothing much (ratio of 1 teacher to 50 kids in class compared to 1 to 1 if hs), phobia of missing out any homework cos teacher never fails to punish but fail to forgive! and the list is long....
Next, 3rd DS. Still praying...
Finally, God answered prayer. Dh has to work in Dubai and the family has to stick together. DH recognises the flexibility of hs schedule so finally, he said yes.
Yes! I now hs my DC trying hard to de-school them. They love it!
The list goes on and on for the reasons to hs.

 

Ive always homeschooled Madison..it works with my work schedule and I get to enjoy o ur time together more. I didnt have a child so someone else could raise her. My sister also hs's her kids and that inspired me alot!!!

 

My story, in a nutshell.

I had my first son at 19. I was a child myself and had nothing but selfishness - my career, my free time, my life. I wasn't a bad mom, but I also thought nothing of putting my son in daycare while I finished school (college, I did get my BA) worked late hours at my job, and so on. On day, when my oldest was 3, we were driving to daycare and he looked at me and said, "Mommy, you live at your work, daddy lives at his work, and I live at my daycare." I would be lying if I said this didn't affect me. But, at that time, I had no means to do anything about it. I was actually just months from divorcing his dad at that time, and I needed my job. His dad was not the type to support a SAHM either.

Fast forward two years, I was divorced, remarried and pregnant with #2. My oldest was barely 5 and started Kindergarten in ps. He was ADHD, and they forced medication in GA...especially after he stabbed another child accidentally in the head with a pencil. I didn't know homeschooling existed. I mean, I knew some "really weird" people did it, but hey, that wasn't for me.

Then, God took us to GA (oh how I know God was preparing me for where I am now...even then) and my dh befriended a man named Ed. Ed was a very spiritual man who deeply touched my husband and while in GA, my dh was saved and baptized. Then Ed invited us to his home to meet his family and have dinner. His wife was a SAHM, like me (I quit work when ds 2 was born and never went back) and she HOMESCHOOLED her kids. Her kids were LOVELY in every way! They were intelligent, polite, articulate, social, friendly, full of manners and just really awesome kids. Immediately, my thoughts of homeschoolers turned from "only weird people do that" to "wow, that is really great, but I could never do it..."

Enter ds 2...LOL and his complete sheer will to be homeschooled. Since he was small, he has told me he didn't want to go to school, he wanted to be here with me. That will pass, I thought. Just a phase. Nope. We tried homeschooling pre-K and I was just LOST. We were using books from wal-mart. No wonder! So I enrolled him in a church pre-K two days a week last fall. He went. He hated it. Cried and begged me not to take him. Finally, I gave in and realized this was NOT a phase...and, not to mention, he had forgotten most of what he knew by BEING IN PRESCHOOL. When he went, he was writing his name, knew the alphabet and all the letter sounds, and could count to and identify numbers to 10. He came home in May after preschool had ended for the summer and he knew very little of that! So that was IT. Ds2 was being homeschooled.

But my heart begged me to keep trying to persuade ds1's dad to agree to hs'ing which he had previously blatently refused to allow. I prayed, I had the church pray for us. And God answered that prayer...he changed his mind and told me to give it a try.

I will say that my oldest ds always had a hard time in ps. Not academically...but otherwise due to his adhd. And 3rd grade was a nightmare. He had a bully that woudl tell ds that he would bring a gun to school and kill him and nothing was done by the school at all! So, even if I hadn't homeschooled this year, my son would not have been going back to that school. We were looking at private school until my ex changed his mind.

So, to answer your questions:

1. Did most homeschoolers start in schools and then switch? We did with one, not with the other.

2. Would they have stayed in school if the experience had been better? Maybe so, but I am thankful it wasn't because it allowed me to see just how little he was being taught in school and gave me this wonderful opportunity to be his teacher.

 

I had decided a while ago that I wanted to homeschool my kids, but when I met my fiancé, he already had a kid in public school because he had to work and couldn't homeschool or do daycare and his ex is pretty irresponsible. But he always had the dream of homeschooling his kids.

This year she will be in second grade and we've decided that this will be her last year in public school. We are nervous with all the psychiarists in schools and their garbage trying to put kids on psych drugs—did you know their latest campaign is to get kids AGES 0 TO 3 years on psych drugs? They are "testing early" for mental disorders and are calling it "prevention." No way will my DD 7, who is just enthusiastic, be tested or suggested for ritalin or anything similar. I don't believe the PS have "failed" us personally, but we both believe they will with their lack of knowledge on how to teach, their "dumbing down" of the material, and the other kids on psych drugs that might bring a gun to school.

I hope the children we have will never have to deal with ps. It will take a lot to get our finances to a place where we can homeschool next year, but we are going to pull it off. And if a psychologist even LOOKS at our DD, we'll yank her this year!

 

Our conviction has always been non-public education. Our kids have went to our church schools and have been homeschooled. The reasons we homeschool seem to change every year, when we talk about either putting them in Christian/Church school or homeschooling. When my oldest started school we were in Germany, our church didn't have a school and the closest school that was "of like faith" was about 45 minutes away, so we felt we were left with no other option than to homeschool.

So, we are homeschooling now for much the same reason as when we were in Germany. There is a school of like faith only a few miles from us but it would cost us $20,000 a year for all 3 of our kids to attend there, yes, I said $20,000 a year!!! So, there is NO way we can even begin to even entertain the idea of putting them in school here.

So that's our view with a little story.

 

Here's the story of how & why we started hsing:
I was a single working mom until my dd was in Kindergarten. So, she went to day care, then preschool, then kindergarten in ps, while I worked to support her. I had no idea homeschooling existed. I knew that before public schools people had educated their kids, I just didn't realize it was still going on. Anyway, my dd has always been very advanced. By the time she started Kinder, she was reading fluently, could count way past 100, knew all her shapes & colors (beyond the normal ones they teach at that level), etc She was not allowed to do anything at her level. Even though she was reading, she was expected to sit there with the rest of the class while they spent a week learning the letter A. Needless to say, she was bored out of her mind. I had asked the teacher to let her read or give her more challanging work to do and was told that was not possible. To give her something to do, the teacher asked dd to help the other kids learn. I didn't send my child to school so she could teach, I sent her there to learn. On top of that, the other kids picked up on the fact that dd knew the answers every time the teacher asked something & quickly realized that she knew a lot more than they did. They started to bully her. It started as just verbal but by mid-year had become physical (remember, we're talking about 5 year olds). The school refused to do anything about it.
During dd's kindergarten year, I gave birth to my ds. He was 3 months premature & I was not about to trust that a daycare would be able to give him the extra care & attention he needed. So, I had become a SAHM. After ds was born, I started looking into different options for dd (since I was in the hospital on bed rest since before Thanksging & dd had been living with my dad & step-mom during that timne, I couldn't really look into options until after ds was born). With me not working & us living only on my dh's income, private school was not possible. I found some books on homeschooling at the library. I read every one I could find, and did tons of research online. I brought it up to dh, who wasn't so sure it was a good idea. His concern was that I'd be taking on too much with already having a preemie at home to care for. He finally agreed to try it when dd came home from school & told us that a boy in her class (again we're talking 5 year olds) had put her in a choke hold! At this point the school year was almost done, so we had her finish out the year. I used that time to get used to ds's schedule, learn as much as I could about hsing, and plan for 1st grade.
By the end of kinder, dd refused to admit she knew anything. If you asked her something she had known for years, she would say "I don't know" or "I forget." She didn't want to learn anything at all because she was convinced that being smart was a bad thing (thinks to being bullied for being smart). Even though she had been a fluent reader & loved reading before she started kinder, by the end of the year she refused to pick up a book. Her desire to learn had been crushed right out of her.
On top of the way she was treated and the fact that she's very academically advanced, she also has severe combination-type ADHD. So, I knew ps would continue to fail her if she stayed there. After kinder ended, we contacted the district & told them that she would never be returning to their schools.
We've been hsing since. She's now in 5th grade & doing great. We still struggle sometimes with her not wanting to learn & we're still working on building her self-esteem back up. For the most part though, she's good with school. She will take it upon herself to learn about things that interest her. I sometimes still have to force her to start studying something, because she will automatically assume it's boring & she won't like it. Usually, after the first week, she's really into it (& will continue to learn about it on her own after we're done studying it for school). My ds will never set foot in a ps.
So, yes we started hsing because the ps failed our child. We can provide a much better education, in an envirnment that's actually conducive to learning. We continue to hs because it's what's best for our kids. PS, at least here, are not equipped to deal with children who are "gifted" & have ADHD (which describes both my kids). They barely deal with a child who is one or the other, they deffinitely can't handle a child that's both. If I had known hsing was an option & had been able to do it from the beginning, I would have. Without realizing it, I was hsing part time anyway. The reason she knew so much going into school was because of the stuff we did in our time together. We'd play games to learn the letters & sounds, play counting games, talk about everything we saw, go to museums & zoos (when we had the time & money), and we read a lot of books together. So, I guess you could say we were hsing all along (at least part time), but started to officially hs after a horrible experience with our local ps.

 

All of my kids have always been homeschooled & not for religious reasons.

I homeschool because I attended this ISD for 10 yrs growing up & I know how they operate. My kids will never attend public school as long as we live here.

I suppose if MY experience in this school had been positive, I would have enrolled them. But it wasn't, and the only change they've made is for the worse, so mine will remain in homeschool.

 

What is an ISD?

 

I like reading the replies to this thread. I replied ages ago, but I didn't answer the second question, as to whether they'd have stayed in school had the situation been better.

I'd probably have to say yes to that, because I just didn't believe I could handle HS. If things had gone well, I'd probably still have both kids in school.

I used to say that we'd take HS'ing one year at a time, with a return to school always an option. But now I'm not so sure about that. They never did go to public school, but I'm no longer convinced that private school is any better. As they get older, they might attend a few science or math classes at a homeschoolers' academy nearby. But putting them back in all-day school? I just don't think so. We're having too much fun at home!