Sigh. Our kids are “socialized”, they go on field trips with other kids, and they tend to be more independent, as a whole.

Ok, now to answer your question.

We’re starting our 4th year of homeschooling, my son is 9.5 and in the 5th grade. He previously attended a private school when we lived in another state, which was a really incredible school. If we lived there, it’s likely he’d still be there.

Unfortunately, where we moved to, the schools are less than great…much less. On a national “grading” scale, they received F’s in most areas, and in our district (supposedly the best in the area), the high school drop out rate averages around 20%. Bear in mind, this is the affluent high school…I don’t even want to go into what the others in the area are like. (They do, however, take state in football 3 years out of 5, if that gives you a look at where their priorities lie.)

When we moved here, I noticed how common it was to medicate kids – like maybe ADHD is contagious or in the water – and when my son’s teacher had the cajones to DEMAND that he be medicated on the second day of school (because he was bored silly and she didn’t know what to do with him), I took the weekend and spent every waking minute researching my options. The third day my husband and I pulled him out, and we’ve never looked back.

It hasn’t all been a cakewalk or anything, but it’s been better than I ever could have imagined, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. He wouldn’t either – he feels lucky to be homeschooled.

I would recommend it, although I will say that you need to research it and make sure that it’s what you’re looking for before you decide to go with it. It’s not so much a school option as it is a lifestyle. I love seeing him learn and grow, and I love learning right alongside him. I have learned so much while researching to teach him; I love being able to present the whole story to him in whatever we study, rather than just what’s in the lesson plan or what the whole class is up for.

It’s not for everyone, but it certainly is worth it 🙂

Well the first answer is total non-sense unless you live in INLAND Alaska or your parents are XENOPHOBS.

If you go to the PRimary and Secondary school section here you’ll see many people complaing they have no friends are shunned and isolated.

That’s because of CLIQUES and you have to pick one to have friends. You gotta be a druggie, a nerd, a geek, a brain, a jock, a prep or a goth to get along in school.

Cliques never last, because these people have to eventually join the real world.

Sooner or later every kid becomes their parents.

Homeschooling is simply learning at home from a variety of means.

It can include “school in a box” (CDs, DVDs, text books and test papers sent to you for a fee).

Virtual schooling in the internet.

Field trips all the time if your parents cooperate. To museums, art galleries, stage plays.

If you are into something, like skating, you can do it for several hours in the daytime on a weekday when NO ONE ELSE is on the ICE.

If you’re into Gymnastics you can do it for hours in mid day and probalby for less money than in prime time.

Same with Soccer, KArate and other things.

If there are interseting and informative shows on PBS, Discovery, Science and History TV cable stations you can watch them.

YOu can unschool.

It’s mid-week and most kids are back in school. If you homeschool you can get up tomorrow at 5 AM and watch the Lunar Eclipse until sunrise and then go back to sleep, wake up later and homeschool later.

YOu can’t do that in REAL school.

Now, isn’t it better to see a LUNAR ECLIPSE in person than just read about it in a book.

It’s 4-5 am in the morning in MID-WEEK

Only homeschoolers can do this.

Brick schoolers can, but they’ll be tired by 2 pm.

Unschooling is a part of homeschooling. You get a $100 telescope and can see the eclipse better than anyone else.

Yes, you can do this in a BRICK school, but again, you’ll be half dead by noontime if you wake up at 4 AM and have to be at school by 8 AM

There are certainly some things you can’t get totally in homeschool, unless you are older.

Drama, for example. You can’t do stage plays unless you are at least 16 and vollenteer at a local community theater.

Music, the only exception here are Christians to go to Chruches who join the Choir, then you are doing the same thing.

Or you get a guitar and learn to play it.

That’s unschooling, again.

There are ways of working around it, but it takes $$$

The school year book.

You can devise an HOMESHOOL yearbook of as many homeschoolers as you can find and turn it into a VIRTUAL book using Adobe Acrobat, but the Acrobat maker costs $$$

You can also do it as web pages using Word for Window.

So you put out a notice to all homeschoolers to submit a good picture of themselves and make a year book. A virtual one.

You post it on a free website.

That’s a way of getting around the obstacles.

YOu can’t, however, get around having a COMMERCIAL stand-alone drill press in PLASTICS or METAL or ELECTRONICS class in public school.

At home you’ll probably have a Black and Decker or Skill drill and a cheap drill press. Not a good eqivalent of a $5,000 commercial drill press found in SOME, not all, high schools.

My kids, 10 and 12, love being homeschooled! My son went to public school for about 3 months at the end of last year and thought he loved it. When it came time to go enroll this year he decided that he hated public school and wanted to stay home again. He liked being with his friends all day long then he realized that he actually hated the idea of going to school all day and having someone tell him what to do the entire day! At home he is allowed the freedom to do whatever he chooses and can do what his friends do in 1/4 of the time! I started homeschooling my daughter in 3rd and my son in 5th.

We started teaching our children from the beginning, we just added academics as time went on.

We have had experience with public (DOD), and private Christian school with our oldest daughter.

I was unfamiliar with homeschooling until moving to the US.

Even when I received my formal education, I knew their had to be a better way than mass conventional schooling.

Home schooling was that alternative choice.

Home schooling is a way of life, and it allows learning to take place naturally.

Our children do not look at learning as something they are required to do, it is something they want to do.

I believe in educational choice, home schooling, public, private, private Christian, charter, and virtual.

It is not about one being better, or worse, it is about the freedom to choose.

Conventional schooling does not work for many, because the schools have you adjust to their methods; if it works for you or not, making children feel they failed when they really don’t, all they may have needed was a different approach to learning.

When people home school, they can adjust learning/teaching to benefit the children, and if something does not work they change up; making for a true individualized education. Personally I would highly recommend it, that’s why I am a home school parent, home school advocate, and work with new families.

I started homeschooling in 1-4th grades. It was because I moved to a new state and my mom decided she thought I was a little advanced for the school there so she taught me herself. It was good because in third grade I was doing a seventh grade vocab book, a sixth grade math book, etc etc so I was ahead of my level but I was also behind in things like handwriting etc. I would reccomend it to someone if they are right for it, like you have to really get along with your mom and stuff. The big reason I switched to public school was because my mom and I didn’t get along at all because we were together too much. Now I love my school mostly because of the friends I made there, but when i was homeschooled I went to a boys and girls club and I had pretty cool friends there too so it’s not like i’m deprived. I personally prefer public school but for some people homeschooling is right for them it really depends on your own interests.

There’s dance categories, gymnastics categories, karate, football, baseball, basketball, soccer, co-op, house college agencies that do area journeys and get togethers, church, formative years agencies, our church sponsors a membership for grades four, five, and six, vicinity children, children on the parks, well being golf equipment, the record is as confined because the dad and mom creativeness. You could meet a few one on the grocery or financial institution or strolling errands however that’s just a few mins most commonly even though I do suppose that even a couple of mins will have an influence on our kids. Every individual you meet has the knowledge to difference your lifestyles by some means significant or small. It does not topic for those who simply meet them or you might have identified them for years.

well i started homeschooling last year when i was a freshman. i started around the end of the first quarter. i always wanted to be homeschooled because i rodeo and school was so stress full because i would make myself keep a 4.0. i was hard leavin in the middle of the year but i wanted to so bad!! i am so glad i did. i online school and its a lot harder than public school and i also get a better education. plus since i see my friends at the rodeos every weekend i don’t have socialization problems. i would defiantly recommend homeschoolin because its a great experience to do someting different that not a lot of people do. i loved it so much that i’m stilll doing it this year.

I’ll answer on my dd’s behalf as we’ve talked about these in the past:

She is 9 and has always been homeschooled. It was a decision her dad and I took based on our experiences teaching and our research into homeschooling.

She would definitely recommend it. She’s very aware of the freedom it gives in scheduling, academic progress, choice of work and more. She has no interest in going to public school.

On behalf of a 16yo homeschooled girl I know:

She started homeschooling in gr. 7. (She’s going into gr. 11.) She had been asking her parents to homeschool since grade 3 and after 3 more years of problems with the school and teachers, they finally said yes. She definitely prefers homeschooling: no b*tchy girls putting her down for hanging out with the ‘wrong’ kids or wearing the ‘wrong’ clothes, no teachers throwing books at her or sending her off to the office to do work (that she didn’t understand) by herself, flexibile schedule which has allowed her to up her sports training as well as work several hours a week… She is around public schooled kids on a regular basis and has to deal with the cr*p that goes on with them, especially the girls, and is always so grateful that she doesn’t have to live that day in and day out. Not to mention that at the end of her 6th grade, she was considered 2.5 years behind grade level in reading, writing and math, but by the end of her 9th grade (after 3 years of homeschooling), she was reading, writing and doing math at grade level.

She would recommend it to everyone.

As for the person who responded with not liking it because “the children have no interacting with other children, field trips, and just to have their own independence”, that person really needs to learn more about homeschooling. We go on field trips with other families regularly, not to mention park days, play dates, other homeschooling activities and community lessons. Oh, and Sunday school. They interact, they get field trips and when we’re out at things like park days, they’re off doing they’re own thing, but know we adults–and many of us–are there if needed. My kids are NOT growing up in a bubble.

I personally don’t like the idea of homeschooling.

Reason being, the children have no interacting with other children, field trips, and just to have their own independence.

Though on the other hand, homeschooling seems to be a safer options these days. But, really, we can’t keep our children in a bubble. We want to protect them from harm always!

Oh, I went to public school, and I turned out just fine.