How to Decide?

[PeachBaby]

What were your major deciding factors to homeschool? How did you overcome your major concerns/obstacles?

I think homeschooling is ideal, but I don't know if I myself would be able to do a good job of it. So I have been going in circles wondering if I should try fulltime homeschooling (I think I'd like to try the Montessori philosophy) or if I should see if I can find a Montessori school (although I don't know if we'd be able to afford it).

ETA: okay, I just saw this
http://www.mothering.com/discussions....php?t=1222045
and briefly skimmed it with interest. Especially the part about sending lo to preschool, and then homeschooling.

I think DS gets bored with being at home. I find it hard to interact with him as much as I'd like because there's so many things to do. I think he would enjoy the equipment and opportunity to be with others at a school. Would this be a good reason to send him to a school? I hesitate because it would mean I wouldn't be getting to spend the time with him, he's only going to be young for such a short time.

[lach]

(I didn't mean for this to be so long, sorry!)

I've wanted to homeschool my kids ever since I was a kid. I had a one year homeschooling experience that was wonderful experience, if a bit disorganized. So I plan on being a bit more organized! I don't think that it works for every kid or for every family, but it's something that I feel strongly about for my kids.

I've never really had any interest in home pre-schooling, as I think kids that age are extremely social creatures and grow and learn the best in an atmosphere with other kids their age. I know I'm definitely in the minority about that in this community, but it's just been my experience working with kids in the past, and I think it's proving true for my own kids. It's also a very high-needs age where kids need more "camp counseloring" than they do when they're even a few years older and more independent, and it would be needlessly stressful on me to not get a break, and would definitely decrease the quality of time that we do spend together.

That was my opinion even before I learned more about Montessori and decided to go the Montessori route, but that decision definitely cemented our plan to do preschool. And pushed it to 5 mornings a week, as opposed to just the 3 that she would have done in most of the preschools around here. There are definitely drawbacks to not having any free days with her, but on the other hand she gets so many friggin' vacations I'm not sure we really miss it! It's also been nice to have some alone time with my son.

I know that people homeschool Montessori, and are very happy doing it, but for me personally I think the social aspects of the Montessori classroom are a really, really important part of the philosophy and something that I couldn't replicate at home. So my daughter (and my son to follow) will be doing the 3 year cycle in a Montessori Children's House, and then I plan to pull them after kindergarten and homeschool from there.

So that's my very long answer to your main question. And it is totally and completely 100%ly a "your mileage may vary" thing... this is just where I personally stand. I know that plenty of people do it and are very happy.

As for your fears about not doing a good job, I think those are healthy fears. We're all just sort of making up this whole parenting thing as we go along, and ime being overconfident is just setting yourself up for a fall Do you have any particular reason why you think you wouldn't be able to successfully homeschool? Or just a general sense that this education SO IMPORTANT and YOUR CHILD'S LIFE AND FUTURE and if you screw up HE WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO GET A JOB etc etc.

If it's the latter, then my suggestion would be to take a deep breath and remember that all journeys start with a single step. If you decide to homeschool, that does not preclude you from sending him to school if it doesn't work out. If you decide to go with a traditional school, that does not preclude you from pulling him out later. If you homeschool and pick a math curriculum that turns out to be a total disaster for your son, and just doesn't mesh with his learning style, there is absolutely no reason why you can't buy another curriculum and catch up within a few months. I think that there are few homeschoolers who don't have experience buying a curriculum of some sort that turned out to not work.

While homeschooling seems like a Very Big Decision, just remember that few things in life are set in stone. And that I think it's normal to look ahead and fret that we might mess up our kids. In retrospect, it's kind of funny how obsessed I was with starting solids. Omg, must start with food A for 3 days, then food B for 3 days, must not be twenty minutes before exactly 6 months of age, have benedryl at the ready in case she's allergic to the avocado!. On the other hand, my son's first experience with solids involved a banana nut muffin that he snatched from my daughter's plate when he was 5 months. There are really bad ways to educate your kids, just like there are really bad ways to feed your kids: rice cereal in the bottle at 3 weeks, vodka and orang juice as a complete breakfast for your 3 year old. But I think that you kind of have to go out of your way to do such a bad job. A little bit of common sense and a little bit of flexibility go a long way.

[AAK]

I am def. for preschool--but not an all day academic program. My dd goes to preschool 3 mornings a week. For us, it connects us with families in our area who have kids the same age as dd. She has kids that are "her friends" now. She likes the routine, it allows me to specifically work with the older two at home without being interrupted, and our teachers are fabulous. I think they run an excellent program. They do some academics, lots of practice with fine motor skills, but they also have lots of time to play with the other kids, lots of pretend play stuff there. We also have lots of pretend play stuff, but it is nice to play with other stuff sometimes too. They also have more room for puzzles, etc than we do so she gets more variety that way. She also gets to see toys that we never even thought about. If she finds something that is "great" it might make it under the Christmas tree.

But, I got rambling. After preschool, we did send our older children to ps before we pulled them out. And, making that decision was hard. What eventually got us here is remembering that we can take it one year at a time. If hs stops working for our family, we will find a different solution.

So, in short. We like preschool for many reasons. We also love homeschool. If I had a bunch of kids I think I would always send them to these low stress part time preschool programs whether or not I homeschool them.

Amy

[eliyah]

I don't really have any good info to add, but wanted to thank everyone for the posts. They are very informative and helpful to me, as well; because I am also deciding how to school my son now. He's spent 2 years in a half-day pre-k program, which I also thought was really good for him, but it also made me see how it's tough for children to excel in an environment where others aren't really keeping the same pace. My son definitely catches on quickly, and retains information really well; so then wants to move on to the next thing, but can't. So, that is what led me to thinking homeschool/unschool/or cyber school might be better choices. I am still not 100 percent sure what I'm going to do, but I appreciated all the insight.

[CrazyCatLady]

I've been doing kindy at home with my daughter this last year. I never thought I would be a homeschooler honestly. I always figured we'd have Zayla in private schools. I have physical and mental health issues, I get stressed easily, bored easily, she's an only so I worried about socialization, etc. Doing the sahm thing for the ages 2-4ish is terrible for me. I am so not a preschool teacher. I was bored, it seemed like Zayla was bored, it made us both mean and miserable. The days felt endless. I finally put her in Montessori daycare/preschool as a toddler and it was the best thing ever (hard as it is as an AP mom to say that). I'm sure she would have preferred to be at home, but she also had a great time in "school" and did learn a lot of cool things.

We ran out of money for private school when she was five. I just didn't have the stomach for putting her in our local public schools. So homeschooling it was. And it has been so amazing! Now that she's older, we can talk and hang out together like real people. We're always busy with classes, homeschool play dates, doing our own things at home (things that are actually fun for me too now), going places, playing together, doing chores, enjoying nature, etc. I'm mostly an unschooler, but throwing some curriculum in our days wouldn't even feel daunting to me at this point. We're happy and I'm rarely stressed or bored.

Not sure if any of this helps you at all. I guess I just wanted to say that it seems normal to me to want to do the regular preschool thing and then start homeschooling for kindy or 1st. Also that I NEVER thought I would be cut out for homeschooling, and it's going great for now. It's always worth trying I figure if you're interested, you can always send them to school later.

Good luck figuring everything out.

[lach]

Originally Posted by Melaya

I've been doing kindy at home with my daughter this last year. I never thought I would be a homeschooler honestly. I always figured we'd have Zayla in private schools. I have physical and mental health issues, I get stressed easily, bored easily, she's an only so I worried about socialization, etc. Doing the sahm thing for the ages 2-4ish is terrible for me. I am so not a preschool teacher. I was bored, it seemed like Zayla was bored, it made us both mean and miserable. The days felt endless. I finally put her in Montessori daycare/preschool as a toddler and it was the best thing ever (hard as it is as an AP mom to say that). I'm sure she would have preferred to be at home, but she also had a great time in "school" and did learn a lot of cool things.

We ran out of money for private school when she was five. I just didn't have the stomach for putting her in our local public schools. So homeschooling it was. And it has been so amazing! Now that she's older, we can talk and hang out together like real people. We're always busy with classes, homeschool play dates, doing our own things at home (things that are actually fun for me too now), going places, playing together, doing chores, enjoying nature, etc. I'm mostly an unschooler, but throwing some curriculum in our days wouldn't even feel daunting to me at this point. We're happy and I'm rarely stressed or bored.

Not sure if any of this helps you at all. I guess I just wanted to say that it seems normal to me to want to do the regular preschool thing and then start homeschooling for kindy or 1st. Also that I NEVER thought I would be cut out for homeschooling, and it's going great for now. It's always worth trying I figure if you're interested, you can always send them to school later.

Good luck figuring everything out.

I just wanted to show some support to you, and say that I love my kids more than anything, and I love working with and teaching kids and have done it for most of my working life... and for me, a little bit of the toddler and preschool years goes a looooong way. Some people, I think, are "baby" people, and some are "toddler" people and some are "older kid" people, and I am definitely an "older kid" person. And that's all perfectly fine with me! I still think that I'm a pretty awesome mama, all things considered. We all have our limits, and the stage where I have to read the same book 100x a day, answering the exact same 100 questions about each page in the exact same way, is my limit. On the other hand, I am totally 100% about discussing a book with someone who understands (even in a rudimentary way) plot and linear story lines and character development. And once we get old enough to do some craft projects that go beyond dumping out an entire bottle of glue onto a piece of construction paper, I will be in parenting heaven!

So I just wanted to reiterate my earlier post (which was too long, I know: I have to be better about writing less) that there's no one size fits all perfect way to raise a child. Even if homeschooling is ideal, there are lots of "ideal" ways to raise a child that aren't applicable to every child or every situation.

[karika]

I guess I always planned on homeschooling. I feel it is an extension of attachment parenting. It seems unnatural to me to send my child to another person for instruction (until the child is much older (somewhere between 10-18 yo), then it I feel it will be a good thing. My only obstacle I can think of is the $ for curriculum. This was solved for us by a place called columbia virtual academy. We are given our allocation that would've been used at a public school. So we have $1200 allocation and decide how to spend it. I do not believe in schedules for eating or sleeping for the most part, and that was always my problem with school when I was younger, I am a night owl naturally, so to have to get up early just didn't work for me. But now that I have let go of 'clock time' I just sleep when I am tired and I am much more rested. So the 'schedule' of a school wouldn't work for my children. I also feel the foods available at a school are akin to poison (this is my belief after all the research I have read from reputable sources) food colorings should be illegal according to many scientists and it is in the food they serve. I believe msg, dairy, preservatives, and hydrogenated fats to be harmful to the human system. These things are served there and the children are told the lie (IMO) that cow's milk is healthy. I do not want my child exposed to the sleeping man's world until she is older and knows more. The things taught in public school are not in line with my beliefs, and many times are the opposite (food pyramid, native americans and european contacts (I believe the native americans were the true inhabitors of this land and should have been let be), treating columbus as a hero when he was a murderer... the way the history of people of color is presented (it always starts with teaching about slavery, instead of the fact that some of the early colonists were from Africa and West Indies, and then more time should be given to how the africans were before being captured.) I had a boxed curriculum this year while waiting ot enter the 'custom' program, so whenever I encounter something that is not what I want to teach, I reword it or skip it. Oh another reason I homeschool, I was gifted and remember how it was having to wait so long for the other children to finish an assignment or test ok 18 mo monkey getting me....