Why did you decide to Homeschool?

[madeofstardust]

I know I'm trying to plan waayyyy far off in advance right now, but I'm doing a lot of research about different schooling options for my DD, who is now only 7 months old, hah. I really am leaning towards homeschooling but my DP isn't super supportive of it. He says that whatever I decide he'll deal with, but I want him to care about and want it too.

What are the biggest benefits that you see from having homeschooled your child/children?

I was unschooled, and in a lot of ways I think it helped me develop into my own person but I also feel like I missed out a lot. My mom didn't socialize me at all really, we never went outside and were locked in the house all day. I do not want this at all for my baby, but I would want to join homeschool groups and stuff like that.

Thanks in advance!

[koru]

Wow. Interesting about your unschooling experience.

I slipped into hs'ing because I thought everything happened way too fast. I didn't send my kids to pre-K because there was no reason, IMO. When it came time to send my DD1 to kdg I was so stressed. It wasn't that I couldn't be apart from her....I just didn't think she needed to be gone 5 days a week to learn anything. After a year of having her home (and doing nothing) I'm definitely on the path of "better late than early." Not that she's not a bright girl & taught herself to read & can do math in the craziest ways in her head....I just don't do anything structured, at this point, and am loving watching it all flow.

[sbgrace]

Initially I decided to homeschool because as a former teacher (11 years) I knew that one of my kids just wouldn't thrive in a typical school setting. That is still true of him and I believe always will be. As time went on I decided that homeschooling was better for both my kids.

They can spend so much more time playing and exercising their imagination which I think is the most important thing developmentally at young ages. I can select the best programs and tailor things to fit my particular children. We can follow their interests. In short, I believe my kids will get a higher quality education at home than they would in our local schools.

[AAK]

I actually pulled my kids out of ps this past year. The primary reason for my oldest was that the school was unwilling/unable to challenge her. School/learning was boring and that attitude was creeping into other learning type activities. I want my kids to be life long learners, so I pulled her out to make it exciting again.

Other reasons:
The math curriculum drove me nuts!
The girls were already back-stabbing in first grade.
Evidence of a sexualized culture were already apparent.
The schedule made life stressful. It was difficult to take piano, be in a play, AND do school. And since a lot of a ps day is wasted time, we thought we could do better (we do!)

FWIW my dd does still attend the gifted pullout program. (1 day/week and we love it)

Amy

[Kagrish]

I don't homeschool, but I have thought about it for my now 10 month old son, mostly because of how bad the public schools seem to be.

[Plummeting]

Lots of reasons...

We're military and move every couple or so years. Changing schools means changing curriculum, over and over and over again, which has been shown to seriously hamper a kid's ability to retain anything. I'm not okay with that.

We will probably frequently wind up in the South, just because of what my DH does, and a lot of schools in the South still use corporal punishment. Our local schools where we are now still have a lot of religious teaching, on top of the corporal punishment. I'm not okay with that.

I don't want our whole lives to revolve around a school schedule.

DD doesn't want to go to school, but she loves "doing school" at home.

I think she'll learn better with the one on one attention she can get from me.

I think she'll learn better when she can decide what she wants to learn and how she wants to learn it.

I really enjoyed school and did well, but I always wanted to stay home. Why not let my daughter do it every day?

There is so much we can DO that she'd just not be able to do if she were in school.

I love being with my daughter, even when she's driving me crazy. lol

[mommy68]

My oldest is a teenager and I planned to homeschool him beginning around age 3/4. He did go to preschool and enjoyed it but I started to see how he followed the crowd and was a follower, very shy, not a good spot to be in and the peer pressure started so early for him. DH and I knew immediately that we wanted to homeschool. My children have gone to school for a year or two but we went back to homeschooling and plan to keep it up. At this point the public schools in our zone are not good at all and the private schools are too expensive and too strict, have too many rules and the thought of following a strict calendar for 10 months out of the year and drop offs and pickups does not appeal to me at all. Tried that and didn't like it.

Our DS will be in 9th grade in fall of 2010 and I am seriously considering the local comm college for him but it will be a major decision to make. He is still a very shy, introverted person and I'm still afraid he will fall in to the negatives of peer pressure and I guess I just need to learn to let go. He would prefer to probably stay home throughout high school but I really want him to experience high school and the comm college is a great option for him.

[joy_seeker]

Originally Posted by sbgrace

Initially I decided to homeschool because as a former teacher (11 years) I knew that one of my kids just wouldn't thrive in a typical school setting. That is still true of him and I believe always will be. As time went on I decided that homeschooling was better for both my kids.

They can spend so much more time playing and exercising their imagination which I think is the most important thing developmentally at young ages. I can select the best programs and tailor things to fit my particular children. We can follow their interests. In short, I believe my kids will get a higher quality education at home than they would in our local schools.

This is almost exactly what I was going to say except I taught for 10 years, not 11.

[ALittleBitCrunchy]

When my son was 5 and kindergarten was looming, I found out that our school does not support diabetes in a way that I consider even remotely safe. They don't have a nurse on site, they won't do injections, they wouldn't even offer emergency care but instead call an ambulance, which would take 7-8 minutes to arrive. Their theory was that the kids needed to manage it themselves. : Because so many 5 year olds can do the math to calculate corrections and doses, you know. Not to mention have the coordination to draw up a shot. : I would have to sue the school district for accommodation and hope that I liked their solution after the court case settled. I had this thought of "If they won't take care of my daughter, I'm certainly not giving them my son!" We are semi-rural and this is the only public elementary school within a 20 minute drive, and with 2 working parents a 40 minute commute twice a day wouldn't work. So homeschooling suddenly became a great idea.

I like that it also resolved some of my other anxieties. For instance, my son is an active kid and even at 7 it's hard for him to sit still. I also don't care for the idea of a limited peer set of 20 kids absolutely identical in age. Also, I would rather that DH and I be the primary influence in their lives while they are young. For so many reasons this is the best option right now. It started with something completely outside of our control but it has led to some great years - DS is in his 3rd year of homeschooling and it's DD's first year.

[theretohere]

School was a poor social and academic fit for my oldest. Homeschooling has allowed her to flourish- academically she is advanced and socially she is getting more confidant. It's win, win for us.

[shoefairy3]

going to try to make a long story short

DS#2 was struggling really bad during his 2nd grade year. He had quickly fallen very very far behind and had a teacher who couldn't really help (she had a classroom full of disruptive kids) Anyhow, in march, we decided to pull him to try and catch him up. I've always had the dream to homeschool, but when DS#1 was of kindergarten age, I was pregnant with #4 and too tired to give him my fullest attention.

FF to this summer. Since DS#2 is hsing, we decided to carry on lightly into the summer. Really we have been enjoying it so much that my DH and I decided it was time to pull them all (we originally were sure we wanted to pull them at jr high time).

Any how, DD#3, just finished K, advanced in all subjects. Thankfully she is a good little girl and wasnt disruptive or acted bored. I really think she probably should have skipped to 1st (especially after her 1st quarter grades came back as Advanced in all subjects) and I didnt feel as if they were challenging her enough. Homeschooling just seems to really fit her drive to learn and excel.

DS#1 is doing fine in school, but I really am just excited for him to be home and learn with all of us. PLus, I think he could be challenged a bit more. Also, his homework was taking him forever and ever. Who wants to spend 8 hours a day doing school, then come home to do 2 more hours of review homework...silly

I used to cry that someone else was getting to spend all day with my children, watching them learn new things, and that I was missing out.

We are doing a mixed-unschooling like homeschool. I guess you would call it. B/c I just can't let go of math, we do one worksheet daily, that they get to pick out from their book. (see, trying to let go : ) we are "officially" starting on July 1st

PLus, i just stinking missed them all day when they are at school.

[elizawill]

no big reason honestly. we just never considered anything else as an option. i knew i wanted to homeschool since my dd was a baby, and my dh was really supportive...so here we are

[Harmony08]

Hi Bethanie,

I am in your boat. My ds is 9 months old and I am spending his naps researching curriculums and state laws and lurking around here. DH was/is not in favor of homeschooling. I keep bringing it up gently, talking about all of the benefits etc. We are technically just "keeping it on the table" and researching all of our options. I have decided that I want to homeschool. The only thing that may change my mind is if it is too much for me when we have more babies. Even then I would only send him to school if I could find some groovy alternative school. My main reason for wanting to homeschool is that I truly believe that that is the way to give him the very best education and the best possible childhood.

[Katwoman]

My oldest is academically very smart, but not very emotionally mature. I could sense much time spent at school advocating for her to get the academic stimulation she needed and supporting her maturing process. Also, I'm vehemently opposed the concept of treating every child exactly the same with no responsibility on the part of the school to keep order. (Talking behavior issues and zero tolerance rules.)

I decided if I was going to spend that much time advocating and intervening on her behalf, I'd rather teacher her myself. We can spend time on what we want and she can get what she needs at her pace without having to "blend in with the crowd".

[madeofstardust]

Thanks for all the responses! Every time I think about homeschooling DD I just feel so warm and excited and my heart beats a little faster. It feels like the right thing. I mean, I guess that I'll have to wait for her to get a little older and see what her temperament/personality is like, though, I guess homeschooling would be good for a kid with almost any personality. We live in a pretty big city [Orlando] so I'm sure that finding a good homeschool group couldn't be too hard. Do you think it would be strange to try to attend a homeschool group now just to get more of a feel for it? I don't want to intrude too much in any direction.

[Harmony08]

Originally Posted by madeofstardust

Thanks for all the responses! Every time I think about homeschooling DD I just feel so warm and excited and my heart beats a little faster. It feels like the right thing. I mean, I guess that I'll have to wait for her to get a little older and see what her temperament/personality is like, though, I guess homeschooling would be good for a kid with almost any personality. We live in a pretty big city [Orlando] so I'm sure that finding a good homeschool group couldn't be too hard. Do you think it would be strange to try to attend a homeschool group now just to get more of a feel for it? I don't want to intrude too much in any direction.

I get so excited and happy when I think about homeschooling too! It is very recently that I decided to do it. I only thought about it as a last resort kind of thing until I started researching. But now I feel so great when I think about the future and know that ds will be home with me and his future siblings

I haven't joined anything but I have heard that there is an early childhood homeschool group near me. It is for birth-5 years, I think. You could look for one or start one.

[briansmama]

I've always wanted to homeschool my children, even before I had any, and before marriage. I knew a family who homeschooled and the kids had a rigorous education, and a MUCH better quality of life, IMO.

Before my mom went back to work, she would ask us if we wanted to stay home from school on a rainy day to bake cookies and read, sew, and/or watch a movie. Occasionally they'd let us miss school so she and my dad could take us to an art gallery or museum on an off-day to avoid crowds.

I just always knew that I wanted to be able to do that with my children, even more often, and here I am, getting to do it

[SoCaliMommy]

My daughter struggled in public school K.

On her end of the year report card in a little note section said

She needs extra time when it comes to understanding new concepts

What better reason to homeschool her, and the fact that she told me a girl she played with at school told her

i don't want to be your friend because your stupid

like i really want my daughter to be around kids like that.

My dh is sorta onboard his concern is mainly just being unsure because he doesn't know anyone that has homeschooled their kids before.

[joy_seeker]

Originally Posted by madeofstardust

Do you think it would be strange to try to attend a homeschool group now just to get more of a feel for it? I don't want to intrude too much in any direction.

We have MANY families in our group who don't have children of traditional "school age" yet. I count them as very lucky to have so much input so early on.

[sapphire_chan]

It's more that I haven't decided to send her away to school. And that's because there really having been any convincing arguments in favor of it.