I grew up in public schools. Never once thought about homeschooling my kids. My wife and I have seriously been discussing it lately. She is a teacher and has so many stories that absolutely terrify me as a parent and it only seems to get worse each year.

We very likely will make this leap next year. Anyone else going through this? I want my kids to face the realities of life, but at the same time, it's just too much and I don't see public education getting better.

I can't be of any help, but want to say great decision.

Best of luck to you!

Good luck and God bless!

If the only chance I have to raise decent kids is to homeschool them, then I don't understand why I don't just go ex pat.

Bound to be better places abroad while this place goes to hell.

From what I can gather around here, it depends why you do it. If you do it because of Covid it will make them fall behind and become crazy and depressed and drug addicted and basically ruin them for life. If you do it because they might have a nonbinary teacher with blue hair it will give them the armor of god and they will be unstoppable.

I was in the same boat that never considered home school.

COVID happened right as my oldest was supposed to start kindergarten and macaroni pictures over teams did not seem like a good use of time so we home schooled and my wife liked it. I think from the social side it just depends on how involved in the community you are.

My biggest concerns long term are quality education in the higher grade levels and are they going to be prepared for college and have a good application?

Like you I'm not exactly thrilled hearing about what's being covered in public school these days especially for the little kids

Guess it depends on your school district and where you live. My wife's also a teacher and we have a great school district, but we live in a small town also. Our Super was up for for superintendent of the year one time. He purposely threw the final interview by telling the panel how they still enforce corporal punishment and discipline is the only way to make things better.

rocky the dog said:

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Good luck and God bless!

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Public schools are terrible, but that quote does not make any logical sense. It's pseudo-intellectual bull****

ActualTalkingThermos said:

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From what I can gather around here, it depends why you do it. If you do it because of Covid it will make them fall behind and become crazy and depressed and drug addicted and basically ruin them for life. If you do it because they might have a nonbinary teacher with blue hair it will give them the armor of god and they will be unstoppable.

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This is the type of response you get when conversing with someone who listens but doesn't understand the conversation.

The "numbers" say we are in a top school district. But there is way more beneath the surface that I'm not sure I'd know if my wife weren't a teacher there.

ActualTalkingThermos said:

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From what I can gather around here, it depends why you do it. If you do it because of Covid it will make them fall behind and become crazy and depressed and drug addicted and basically ruin them for life. If you do it because they might have a nonbinary teacher with blue hair it will give them the armor of god and they will be unstoppable.

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Do you really not know that "homeschooling" and "remote learning" are two completely different things?

I think he actually thinks home schooling means giving the kid a computer and telling him to watch a bunch of educational YouTube videos.

Bless his heart

Our kids won't be back in a public school. In private now but may transition to homeschooling.

Public school is past the point of no return.

We homeschool. Large family, still relatively young kids. Both
of us grew up in public school.

The great thing is there are a lot of resources these days. Online has a lot of materials, videos, support, etc. There's a growing network of families in many communities, too. We participate in a program that meets for a classroom style session at a church one day a week with some great families.

Overall, a good move. Lots of opportunities for kids to develop socially and can have confidence in a solid education.

I was VERY skeptical as well. You do have a leg up as your wife is a teacher. We live in a great school district but I Highly recommend home school or the various other private school opportunities out there as the time spent with your kids, knowing what they are consuming, and watching them grow is invaluable. You could also consider a university model that's only in class 2 or 3 times a week and you are still teaching them at home a few days which makes it easier as you get the materials and a structure as well as the interaction with other kids. Your wife could also potentially teach for a reduced rate tuition. It gives you flexibility for vacations as well as other educational opportunities in the home school communities as we are often traveling and knocking out weeks of material. Some schools are a la carte so if your child is real strong in math and science they can double down and advance at their pace or interest. In many cases, kids are far enough ahead that their junior and senior year of home schooling could be spent at a JUCO racking up credits. You'd be surprised how many kids in your neighborhood are home schooled or involved in the various home school networks. Also, just because your kids are home schooled / private doesn't mean they can't participate in various local ISD activities (depending on your state / local bs)

We homeschool as well. My wife does a phenomenal job. I'm not going to lie. It is tough sometimes, but the thing you have going for you is that you want what's best for your kids, and when that light bulb goes off, that is a great moment

Enjoy that time because no matter how much time you spend with your kids, you will wish you had more.

We've talked about it briefly (as well as private school), but at least for now our kids are in an extremely good public school district that is pretty transparent about the curriculum.

University model schooling if it is available in your area. Your child will attend school 3 times a week and at home getting taught by you twice a week. The child spends the most time a week with the family unit and you are fully aware of the curriculum. They also get to develop the social skills that aren't always available with 100% homeschooling.

Oakwell Academy is a Christian University Model school here in B/CS.

rocky the dog said:

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Good luck and God bless!

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That quote is illogical, self-contradictory nonsense

It's a different situation for every kid but the most important factor is strong parental engagement. That could mean homeschool. That could mean public. That could mean charter or private. The key is that you stay actively engaged as a parent and know what your kid is learning and what their experiences are.

Homeschool makes a lot of sense for many families but not for all. The traditional public school model though is flawed though and deteriorating. There are still great schools and great experiences for kids in public school but you sure as hell can't just assume it will happen, same as homeschool or private or charter. Sometimes it is a kid by kid thing and sometimes it changes as kids age.

In the end though I've found money has no correlation to success. Many of the best schools spend far less than the worst. The biggest differentiator is parental engagement, it's irreplaceable.

My big question with homeschooling has always been the kids' competiveness with others regarding college. That and, to a lesser degree, the social aspects.
So, my brother homeschooled. His kids had ample social opportunities...with other homeschooled folks (very well-adjusted, fun, normal kids) and his daughter just finished her first year at TAMU.
I think the stigma once attached to homeschool folks is quickly fading (they aren't the weirdos and outliers anymore) and it's become so much more mainstream.
Do it

JDUB08AG said:

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I grew up in public schools. Never once thought about homeschooling my kids. My wife and I have seriously been discussing it lately. She is a teacher and has so many stories that absolutely terrify me as a parent and it only seems to get worse each year.

We very likely will make this leap next year. Anyone else going through this? I want my kids to face the realities of life, but at the same time, it's just too much and I don't see public education getting better.

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Public education is not getting better, anywhere.

My wife and I are at the point where we just have to see it through. We have a 16 year old about to be a junior and a 13 year old about to be an 8th grader. Our kids are so far right we have to dial them back so we are more than confident they are non corruptible. Likewise, my wife is a librarian on our district and literally holds the fort down on a daily basis fighting back the lunacy of the left infecting her work. And she is damn good at it.

So like BMX said, I don't have much to add but I support your decision and good luck. We have not seen enough lunacy in our district (cough, hack, Georgetown) to make us believe our kids are in an indoctrination camp. I know so many others can't say the same.

We've homeschooled all 3 of our kids from the start. The oldest is graduating this year and has had no problem getting into college. She's done very well and all 3 are well-adjusted and some of their best friends are public-schooled.
The social aspect is different, but you just need to be intentional about finding opportunities to get them involved in communities to be around other kids. Co-op is one of the ways our kids interact with others. The fears that most people have about it are overblown. The 2 oldest have taken dual credit courses to get college and high school credit and have done well, and they all have jobs now. I highly recommend it.

JDUB08AG said:

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I grew up in public schools. Never once thought about homeschooling my kids. My wife and I have seriously been discussing it lately. She is a teacher and has so many stories that absolutely terrify me as a parent and it only seems to get worse each year.

We very likely will make this leap next year. Anyone else going through this? I want my kids to face the realities of life, but at the same time, it's just too much and I don't see public education getting better.

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Here are some thoughts and considerations after we've done homeschool for a good number of years.

Our number one consideration was realizing that there is no way anyone is going to care more about your kid's education than you and your wife. You have the highest incentive. Everyone else involved is doing a job for a paycheck.

In general it is good to think critically about how you are going to get your kid educated. We have been socially tuned to accept the public school model as the model. In 2022 it is healthy to question this, no matter how vaunted the local public school system is.

One thing I see is that myself and other folks perceive public school from the viewpoint of their own experience. It isn't 1982 it is 2022. Public schools are way way different and not exactly in a good way.

Homeschooling isn't easier, it isn't harder, the effort is just rearranged vs a public school routine. There are many factors that make homeschooling easier on everyone, but you have to work more at the social aspect.

All the time spent shuffling your kid back and fourth to a school is waste; all the wasted time in school day itself; the long summer break is a joke and a detriment to long term learning. We do school year round. The learning doesn't stop and it is done in smaller more manageable modules that are tuned to our kid.

This isn't just about keeping a layer of protection against outrageous social conditioning, it is also about ensuring the value-add instruction is being adhered to and tuned to what your kid can take on at that point. (Remember all the fuss about student/teacher ratio? With homeschooling it is at worst 1:1 and many times 1:2. )

You will be continually challenged, sometimes to immense degrees, in figuring out where your kid is getting stuck with certain subjects and material. This is the hard part but is immensely rewarding when you all work through it. In a way this is the heart and soul, the true essence, of homeschooling.

You mention the "realities of life" ...I question how much of public school k-12 actually reflects any "reality of life" Another way to look at it--does it facilitate creation of its own sets of problems that kids have to go through unnecessarily? In my trip through public school, I can say there were alot of experiences I wish I didn't have and also at the same time didn't reflect any real world condition that I had to know how to manage in the future. And there were other experiences that did reflect "reality of life" but I was way too young to deal with them properly. I'm 100% certain that 99% of most public school experiences are similar.


Other benefits to homeschooling

You don't have your life tied down to a school and a school district for 9 months every year for 18 years. We take alot of family trips and include educational material based on where we are going or how we are going.

There is abundantly more time for real world problem solving and projects.

You can pivot and emphasize educational material that is pertinent to your kid's future needs faster than a public school.

ActualTalkingThermos said:

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From what I can gather around here, it depends why you do it. If you do it because of Covid it will make them fall behind and become crazy and depressed and drug addicted and basically ruin them for life. If you do it because they might have a nonbinary teacher with blue hair it will give them the armor of god and they will be unstoppable.

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I know you're trolling, but parents that home school their kids out of choice put effort into teaching them. They also have group functions in order to let them interact with other kids their age.

Paranoid parents that kept them home because of Covid expected on-line learning to do it. And they were isolated.

For the record, we have never considered home schooling or private schooling our kids.

We've successfully gotten through our second year of home schooling our 7 year old. Really glad we went down this road. We are all enjoying it; as someone else said, can never get enough time with your kids.

I'll chime in on the idea you want your kids to experience the realities of life. I definitely do not want that for my son - not yet. He's 7. He doesn't need that on his plate. Not sure I even know what that means either - the realities of peer pressure? Bullying? Porn early in life from that random kid in school? How to compete with others? Plenty of better environments to pick and choose the experiences you want your kids to have.

ActualTalkingThermos said:

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From what I can gather around here, it depends why you do it. If you do it because of Covid it will make them fall behind and become crazy and depressed and drug addicted and basically ruin them for life. If you do it because they might have a nonbinary teacher with blue hair it will give them the armor of god and they will be unstoppable.

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That's a very bad response and you should be ashamed, as should the 14 "geniuses" who starred it.

Having 30 kids doing a remote classroom with a teacher on Zoom is not homeschooling, hoss. Virtual learning does cause them to fall behind, along with many other issues.

Here's how homeschooling works: a parent is physically at home, one on one, with the child and teaches them during the day. The parent can give their undivided attention to the single student, their child. Did I mention that there is a single student and the teaching is done one on one in person?


Now, here is a homework assignment for you: think about the above and refrain from asinine posts.

10andBOUNCE said:

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We've successfully gotten through our second year of home schooling our 7 year old. Really glad we went down this road. We are all enjoying it; as someone else said, can never get enough time with your kids.

I'll chime in on the idea you want your kids to experience the realities of life. I definitely do not want that for my son - not yet. He's 7. He doesn't need that on his plate. Not sure I even know what that means either - the realities of peer pressure? Bullying? Porn early in life from that random kid in school? How to compete with others? Plenty of better environments to pick and choose the experiences you want your kids to have.

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That's not what I mean by that comment. More about the fact that I have no idea what homeschool environment is like and I'm almost conditioned to think that there are healthy challenges you go through in public school with the masses that really help you in life…that was true for me.

I agree there are going to be opportunities to learn life lessons and come across the challenges of life in homeschool, but it's just foreign to me.

All that said, I'm excited about the idea for our kids and my wife is all in on this idea. She sees it everyday at school and I trust her judgement as to what is happening in public education. It's actually not so much the social conditioning (yet) it's the fact that the kids are ****s. No discipline. No respect. The curriculum is being watered down. And so many parents aren't involved and it makes those kids big distractions for other kids. Also, seems like half the kids get classified with a "learning disability" because public education just caters to every parent not wanting to take a the more challenging path for their kid (I know that's a general statement and some are legitimate).

Anyway, just more perspective as to why we are making this decision.

I could not have said it better myself. This is a great overview.

I forgot to mention a couple things, but you covered it really well. The family vacations are a huge plus. We went on a trip to South Padre in the middle of the week, and it was great! Other times we have gone to Colorado and even a trip to Great Wolf Lodge without the crowds.

I should of also added that with homeschool my kids are not just doing busy work. We have focused on teaching our kids how to learn, not just do the work. And if they have really focused on some subjects that they really enjoy. My 12year old son has gotten into world War 2 and has been reading about other wars as well for a few years now. My 15 year old does not like science, but she spent a semester researching topics like depression and mental health because of her cousin, and she wrote a paper on it.

Fixer, thank you for saying what I couldn't verbalize myself. That was a great rundown!

If you factor in the time wasted in a public school day, your kid really only gets maybe 2 hours of instruction.

Homeschoolers regular start at 9 and are done by noon or 1. Double the instruction and it's productive. Most take Fridays off. So in 4 half-days your kids get double the instruction andthe rest of the time is exploration, sports, outdoor activities, etc.


Do it. Give the kids their lives back.

ActualTalkingThermos said:

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From what I can gather around here, it depends why you do it. If you do it because of Covid it will make them fall behind and become crazy and depressed and drug addicted and basically ruin them for life. If you do it because they might have a nonbinary teacher with blue hair it will give them the armor of god and they will be unstoppable.

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cisgenderedAggie said:

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If the only chance I have to raise decent kids is to homeschool them, then I don't understand why I don't just go ex pat.

Bound to be better places abroad while this place goes to hell.

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When you start looking, you realize the world is one big toilet. The United States is really the only hope in the world. The other five eyes nations and the Europeans have less freedom than we do.

Quote:

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If you factor in the time wasted in a public school day, your kid really only gets maybe 2 hours of instruction.

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That depends on the district.

I find it funny how home school parents don't like the "misconception" comments made by public school parents.....and then make the same type of comments about public schools.

And they don't see the hypocrisy of it.

And while I wouldn't home school my children, I fully understand the decision that some parents make to do so. I'm not anti-home school.

Two hours of instruction per day? My kids wouldn't even try to be polite and not laugh at you if you said that to them in person.

I was never going to homeschool my kids. Growing up, I thought it was pretty clear that homeschooling made your kids socially ******ed. I also taught in the public schools and didn't really have a huge problem with them. I ended up staying home to raise my daughter and had her in a private school for many years. My husband was traveling a lot for work and we made the decision to pull her out of school and homeschool her for just one year so we could travel with him. This was the 2019/2020 school year so it really ended up working out in our favor.

My husband has changed jobs with his company and isn't traveling nearly as much. We are still homeschooling. My daughter is thriving. She is currently supposed to be in sixth grade, but is on an eighth grade level for math. ELA is a struggle for her so we are looking to put her in a co-op next fall to see if that helps her improve. You do need to do your homework when it comes to homeschool groups and co-ops because some are full of the socially awkward kids; however, as homeschool gains in popularity, these groups are getting to be more like the school system when it comes to diversity - some are weird, others normal. Some are athletic while others prefer art and drama. Some kids enjoy doing robotics while others are excited about debate. My daughter still gets exposed to many different thoughts and experiences while not having to put up with days-long testing, teacher burnout, or overreaching administration.

We choose to school year-round. That works for us because we can take breaks as needed, much like how things work when you are an adult with a job. she retains the information better without 3 months off in the summer, as well. She usually does school in the mornings except on Tuesdays when she is volunteering at the local food pantry. On those days, we usually start school around 6:30 or 7, take a break for volunteering, and then finish up in the afternoon. Most days, though, we begin school around 7:30 (about to start for today) and are done just after lunch. She swims competitively, runs 10ks, is in four different dance classes, and received a perfect score in the state Bible Drill competition. She has learned to sew and cook, program a robot and circuit sets, discovered musical theater is something she loves but not very good at, and has never once asked me which bathroom she is supposed to use.

If you want, I'd be happy to talk to you more about why I am all about homeschool now when I used to laugh at friends who said they were going to homeschool their kids. It really is, more often than not, the best decision you can make for your kids.

Former public school teacher here.

We have home schooled our kids the last several years, starting before the pandemic because they weren't being challenged and were wasting their time in public schools.

They are socially about the most mature and well adjusted kids you could ever meet because we take them everywhere to do everything and have participated in a co-op with a bunch of other good, "normal" families.

Most importantly, they have become sharp thinkers and much more inquisitive than they were in their public school days.

We are actually going to try public school out one more time this year as we've moved to a small town and the kids are now middle school / jr high age. We will have a short leash on it but the kids have already told us they are perfectly content with homeschool if public school is a circus again.

I'd highly encourage anyone considering homeschooling to give it a shot. It has been a wonderful way for our family to live the past few years.