Does anyone here have any firsthand experience of the pros & cons of home schooling? Whether as a parent, child or friend/family member/neighbour?
I was homeschooled for my early teenage years but it was on an absolutely deranged Christian fundamentalist curriculum. I educated myself out of it once I got to college and I would assume that you’re not planning to do the same thing but I figured that since I have experience I would chime in.
Developmentally it just made me weird and separated me from my peers and ensured that I had several years of catching up to do in terms of learning how the world worked and how society functioned and what was normal and what wasn’t and all of that, once I left the nest.
Would not recommend.
Abeka books? Same
Hey! Got it in one!
This is exactly my experience as well.
i was homeschooled and i could never recommend it. i was isolated from unbiased third parties who may have helped me navigate abuse at home, and suffered thru undiagnosed learning disabilities bc my parents were not trained to spot signs nor did they care. i am still struggling with interpersonal relationships at over 30 due to highly curated social environments and have extreme social anxiety.
a lot of homeschool curriculum are christian nationalist propaganda as well, and are very expensive. same goes for homeschool groups. there is an anti-intellectual stigma attached to homeschooling that in my experience is completely warranted.
We went down the route of homeschooling for our son when he was 4 & 5. It wasn’t our initial choice, however he simply wasn’t ready for school - we’d have to phsyically drag him to the school screaming and crying and throwing himself on the road when we were trying to cross it, couldn’t get him into the car, and him physically hurting himself (punching his head) and saying things like “then I’ll kill myself”. Once we’d pulled him out his mental health got way better.
I’ll summaries our experiences for the limited time we did it:
Pros
- Can tailor learnings based on topics that interest your child
- You can go at your own pace. School is like a conveyer belt where you’re just riding this process at a set pace. You can go as fast or slow as you need.
- Generally just a more relaxed pace, no need to be up at 7am to be out the door for 8:30. If your kid is tired or works best in the afternoon, you’re not locked into a timetable. If your kid isn’t feeling it that day, you don’t have to do anything; or if they’re in a very engaging mood on the weekend, you can do more then.
- More freedom to go and visit places during the day; significantly cheaper and quieter than when you’d go on a weekend
- No stupid school uniform bullshit rules! (Coming from a UK perspective)
- You don’t need to strictly stick to the curriculum (although I’d advise trying to work close to it)
- You can do family activities/holidays in term time, which can be significantly cheaper
Cons
- You need to be attending groups and meet ups with other homeschool kids, regularly. I’ve put this as a con because it can be hard work - both the primary educator and the child/children need to get on! Sometimes you might find a group but it’s cliquey and it’s difficult for the adults to keep going.
- On the above, there’s different reasons why people home educate, but unfortunately you’ll find a fair few anti-vaxxers.
- The CONSTANT worry about “are we doing the right thing?” The feeling of falling “behind” their peers in school, and whether you’re actually doing enough.
- Expensive: depending how you do it, you’re either going to have one parent out of work entirely, or have some kind of reduced hours for both parents who will take turns in being the educator. Activies in the days and getting resources can be expensive. You might also want a tutor to cover more difficult subjects if you don’t feel confident teaching it yourself
- Constantly having to justify to others why you’re doing it and not having others think you’re insane
- Dealing with people within the home school community who think their approach is best and yours is totally wrong
- It might test your relationship with your partner if you’re both not fully onboard.
In the end our son made the decision himself that he wanted to try school again and he ended up starting 3 days a week, and then ultimately full time. There’s been some wobbles but he’s doing really well now. Has the usual complaints about school, like we all did, but he cracks on and always tell us about his day.
Personally I wouldn’t recommend it unless there’s a good reason to and you and your partner, if you have one, are 100% commited to it, and know that there’s a healthy homeschool community around that are doing plenty of activities.
Thank you - this is extremely helpful.
It’s been difficult getting honest, balanced and intelligent input from people around us. We live in area with a big ‘alternative’ subculture and most people seem to have a bit of an axe to grind (both for and against), making it hard to get a useful perspective.
A couple of questions, if you don’t mind:
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Do you know what it was that your son struggled with about going school and what changed when he did start? Also, I didn’t know it was an option to go to school part-time these days. Is this arranged directly with the school and are they amenable to it?
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How did you go about finding groups and meetups? And what usually happens at them?
Everything you’ve said makes perfect sense and I can see how it would effect us.
Thanks again!
Yeah I appreciate the difficulty; a lot of people will look at you as if you have 3 heads and many people are very against it, often for the wrong reasons.
Do you know what it was that your son struggled with about going school and what changed when he did start?
Our son is very emotional and get very anxious easily (if you ever look up a “highly sensitive child”, he ticks a lot of those boxes) - less so these days but when he was younger it was a challenge. I think it was just too overwhelming for him - too many children, too much noise and chaos. Noise and chaos is still his number one issue with school, but he manages it much better now. He’s also a late August child, so he’s basically the youngest child in his school year group (the school year starts from 1st September in the UK), so he’s a year behind developmentally compared to some of his peers. When you’re starting school at 4 or 5, that’s a big difference.
Also, I didn’t know it was an option to go to school part-time these days
It depends on the school. We found a very small school that allowed part time schooling and it was popular with home-ed folks, however it was very far away and he wasn’t there for long as the commute was too much. We then found a local school and he went there full time and was OK for 2 years, had a wobble and we managed to agree with the school that he could do 3 days a week for year 3. We were very fortunate and the head teacher was very understanding about our situation. At the end of year 3, the school decided that he should go back full time, and we also agreed that it was the right thing, as that was our goal anyway. He went back full time this September and he’s been doing great, absolutetly no issues.
How did you go about finding groups and meetups? And what usually happens at them?
My wife mainly found them on Facebook. Usually the kids would play. The age ranges of the kids would vary but they’d all play together nicely. Some parents would set up activities for the kids to do. Sometimes they’d be at gymnatics clubs or drama clubs and so on.
Out of interest, what’s making you inquire about it?
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I knew a couple families who tried homeschooling their kids, but neither stuck with it because of the overall difficulty managing time, discipline and different roles.
In the beginning, they were gung-ho about a curated, focused, accelerated learning track, but the bottom line for both was they got tired very fast.
We started with a state level virtual school when Covid hit for our child. We ended up switching to a homeschool track to allow her to take more classes. Also, she did not want to return to brick and mortar school. (We discussed the decision as a family). She is in middle school and has completed several high school classes on track to have her Associate degree by the time she would finish high school.
We also did the state’s prepaid program for a 4-year degree. So we’ve always had that path in mind.
It works for us, but primarily due to the effort and time my wife can dedicate to being Mom, teacher, and every other hat she wears. She also has a degree in early childhood education giving us a bit of an advantage here.
I work remotely and can help intermittently, but not as consistently.
If you are able to re-learn courses through high-school and be able to help your child on their learning path it can work very well. My wife and I both have college degrees, and some classes involve relearning concepts differently than how we learned the concept. It will require a lot more effort on your side of things.
Find some of the schooling groups in your area, these are great to get help as sometimes groups share curriculum other times it’s about the social engagement the kids need by not being in school.
It’s great if it works for your situation, but there’s a lot to consider what’s best for you and your family.
Thanks for sharing your perspective - it’s really helpful.
Do you find that social interaction has been accessible enough for your daughter?
I’m in a semi-rural area so your experience may be different if you’re in a more urban or suburban area.
Yes, but this is the part that takes effort and some acceptance that sometimes it’s a different approach. Video chat and gaming can be social. My wife also is active in a couple different homeschool groups in the area that get together. Because they have more flexibility, they go to museums, festivals, park, and other learning or social building activities about every other week. We engage with some of the neighbors and their kids too.
The community groups are vastly different too. It’s trial and error to find the right group. You have to make an effort to be active at places and events where the kiddos can engage.
Depending on where you are and what programs are available, you might be able to participate in the extracurricular programs at your local school.
The other thing we encountered when engaging with the non-homeschooled kids is that our kid typically interacts better with adults, which in turn means they’ll be drawn to older kids. This can have its own challenges. Good and bad…. This is just our experience.
It has worked well for us and I wouldn’t change it for the world. I’ve had the opportunity to spend more time with my family than most. I consider myself very lucky.
We’ve considered home-schooling. I’m not concerned about the educational side of it. I know that 1 on 1, or 1 on 2, I’d (we’d) be able to teach our kids WAY more than they’d pick up in a classroom full of 30 half-paying-attention kids.
My biggest concern is the socialization. 2 families we know home-school their children, and, don’t get me wrong, between home school co-ops, activity groups, and programs with the local public school, they DO get a lot of chance to socialize with other kids. I just think there’s a lot of character building in being forced to sit in a classroom with 30 kids you may or may not share a lot in common with, and having to deal with some lessons that move too slow, and some lessons that move too quickly, etc.
I get that sometimes the school environment can be so hostile as to create real problems for some kids, but that’s a bridge we’ll have to cross if we ever get there. (Our oldest is not yet in kindergarten)
I dated a guy who was homeschooled from middle school on to graduation. We were22/23 years old when we dated. His mom had a degree and worked part time at the Library.
We live in New England and when I mentioned an event in Rhode Island I wanted to go to, he couldn’t comprehend how we could drive there, he thought we’d need to take a boat. The guy was sheltered, to a degree I believe was harmful for his growth. He had tons of missing practical knowledge. I don’t know if his mom just didn’t do a thorough job, or what, but her son was serverly lacking a lot of common knowledge and life skills.
I was home schooled the same but from k-12. Definitely didn’t learn much that’s for sure haha.
