This topic is going to be varied drastically depending on the adults. If you're structured, consistent, and meticulous then your kid would probably have a great deal of success. If you just do it because you don't want your kids getting vaccinated or you want them at home reading their Bible all day then they are probably going to fail.

That's not an attack on anyone, just an observance on the type of people who homeschool and the results I see.

Like with most things, your success is going to greatly influence your kid's success. Your faults, your failures, your shortcomings are all going to become theirs to some degree. Just like parenting. There needs to be a lot of self reflection before anyone goes down this path.

I've seen both sides, and homeschooling isn't for everyone.

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The reality is, i think, that people who are home schooled often are socially awkward because they are raised by parents who are very weird

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Yep. I want my boys to excel academically and become engineers. I also think it's just as important for them to do keg stands at a football game after party and slay some ass. If someone thinks those are bad experiences they are weird and awkward, not me.

TheMasterplan said:

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Could you not say the same about bragging about public schools?

The mainstream propaganda is that public schools are good while homeschools are bad. I wouldn't say that's a true statement anymore.

There are lots of reasonable takes addressing pros and cons of each. There are a lot of ba skids coming out of public schools…is that to be blamed on public schools or some other factor?

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I didn't opine on the schools being good or bad just that homeschooled kids were socially off.

And like that guy above me said it's probably got something to do with the parents being off as well. Lots of paranoid anti vax vibes.

I have 13 nieces and nephews. All were homeschooled. All are well-socialized (better behaved than 95% of the students I taught) and well adjusted. It allows them the freedom to do so much more than a public school could ever do, and they can adapt their instruction to their individual learner.

If I had kids, I'd never sent them to public schools. I taught at public schools for 10 years, so know all the pitfalls.

Main thing - parents have to be dedicated, and take it seriously.

Teslag said:

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The reality is, i think, that people who are home schooled often are socially awkward because they are raised by parents who are very weird

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Yep. I want my boys to excel academically and become engineers. I also think it's just as important for them to do keg stands at a football game after party and slay some ass. If someone thinks those are bad experiences they are weird and awkward, not me.

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haha - its not all about that. Some of the home schoolers i grew up with extremely religious. My dad was/is a pastor and we were too. but these were hardcore penacostal folks that were not going to be well adjusted regardless if they home schooled or not. perhaps people think home schoolers are more likely to be socially awkward because people who tend to home school are?

Idk, not meant as an insult (given i was and my family was, my wife was and my roommate in law school was) but the community can be really weird/insular and not well adjusted.

pollo hermanos said:

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Teslag said:

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The reality is, i think, that people who are home schooled often are socially awkward because they are raised by parents who are very weird

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Yep. I want my boys to excel academically and become engineers. I also think it's just as important for them to do keg stands at a football game after party and slay some ass. If someone thinks those are bad experiences they are weird and awkward, not me.

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haha - its not all about that. Some of the home schoolers i grew up with extremely religious. My dad was/is a pastor and we were too. but these were hardcore penacostal folks that were not going to be well adjusted regardless if they home schooled or not. perhaps people think home schoolers are more likely to be socially awkward because people who tend to home school are?

Idk, not meant as an insult (given i was and my family was, my wife was and my roommate in law school was) but the community can be really weird/insular and not well adjusted.

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Thats a good point. Some of these kids are going to struggle anyway.

I can give you the public school experience

- 75% of your time is wasted
- they will cater to the lowest common denominator
- in blue cities ( we are in Austin) , most teachers focus on creating democrat voting bots than on education. And I am not exaggerating.
- no Christian spiritual education whatsoever

On the plus side:
- You grow a thick skin
- You are competing with a large number of kids, so learn to handle college and life stresses well
- its easier to find your peeps.
- The top levels are competitive (my kids were top 2% in a 700 student class) - all their friends were very competitive. This is also true for sports.

Private school might be a great option. If we could have afforded it, that's what we would have done.

AggielandPoultry said:

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Best decision we ever made. 100%

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This here.

Appreciate everyone's insight. Will look more into the Co-op and university approaches.

Upon reflection, it feels like this never ends.

Up at 500
Workout at 530
Kids and breakfast at 630
Work until 4
Kids at 4
Start dinner 530
Dinner at 6
Play/shower 7
Kids bed 8
Parents bed 10

Rinse/repeat. Depressing when you lay it out like that.

whytho987654 said:

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aTmAg said:

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whytho987654 said:

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AggielandPoultry said:

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Best decision we ever made. 100%

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Well your kid well end up socially awkward, congrats on stunting them

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I've seen plenty of home schooled kids who turned out better socially than those in public schools.

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Ive never met a socially adept person who was homeschooled. I would've hated being homeschooled, you need those interactions with different kids during that crucial development period

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I met several through sports. They would teach their kids at home and then sign them up to activities, like select sports, to interface with other kids. That had the additional benefit of ensuring that the kids that they did interface with weren't "general population" kids, but were kids who were driven and well parented.

They were not only socially adept, they were high achievers to boot.

Tanya 93 said:

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aTmAg said:

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Tanya 93 said:

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aTmAg said:

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Tanya 93 said:

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aTmAg said:

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Tanya 93 said:

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aTmAg said:

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schwabbin said:

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Home schooling sounds very isolating to me. I enjoyed public school as a kid and you meet people from all walks of life.

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Sign them up for team sports. That's what several on my kids' soccer teams did. They seemed quite normal.

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I don't know about the age difference between our kids, but you weren't finding poor kids in weekend soccer or little league. These families, outside of possibly what is spoken at home, were extremely the same.

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I am not sure what you mean. Are you saying:

1) This is a problem because your kids won't interact with poor kids.
2) This is a problem because soccer is expensive
3) Something else

And BTW, mine are all graduated from college and one has kids. Also, the older two played on several teams at once. One was a Hispanic team where everybody other than my kids spoke Spanish as their primary language. They were poor AF (but damn good at soccer).

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That is why I asked


The only kids speaking Spanish on the teams had professional parents

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I still don't understand what you mean. Professional parents? You mean like a nanny? If you are asking about my case, they were just normal parents raising their kids like everybody else. There was nothing special about them (except most of them being illegal, I'm sure).

Profs teaching at MU, programmers, and doctors.

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I am not telling someone not to homeschool, but I found more variety in kids in TRYPS and programming than sports.

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In my experience, kids who play team sports are much more well rounded than theater kids.

Sports in general make kids more physically active and healthy, teaches them to try hard, to work towards a goal, to properly interact with adults, to accept criticism, to properly deal with winning and losing. Team sports adds the additional aspect of interacting and working together with others towards a common goal.

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I enrolled my son in sports for years.
I was just explaining my experience
And I don't need to be told again how your mom taught 50 kids of varying ages in a single classroom by herself.


I explained my experience of a mom in a college town with a precocious child.

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No reason to be a c-word. I didn't say anything about my mom. I was talking about what I did with my kids (which also happens to be what she did with us).

I raised 3 kids. All played sports. All graduated college with legit degrees and now have good jobs. Unlike my neighbors who didn't play sports, none were or are socially awkward, had kids as teenagers, any drug problems, or any of that.

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Not being a c word.
Just finished another damn procedure and not putting up with someone telling me my experiences aren't real.

We lived in a specific area when moved here specifically for these reasons

We aren't Texas. Nannies and kitchen workers aren't putting their kids in organized sports here. It is simply different from Texas. We have more Asians in the schools than Hispanics. It is something like 75% white and often rated as one of the best public HS in Mizzou.

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Yeah you were. You brought up my mother for no apparent reason.

And I didn't "tell you your experience weren't real". I was countering them with MY experiences where were every bit as real. And there is nothing wrong with Asians. They are people too.

They don't seem to have problems in public education and own the top 5% of graduating hs classes.

NOBODY WILL CARE ABOUT YOUR KID OR THEIR FUTURE SUCCESS IN LIFE MORE THAN YOU AND YOUR WIFE !!!!

EX TEXASEX said:

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NOBODY WILL CARE ABOUT YOUR KID OR THEIR FUTURE SUCCESS IN LIFE MORE THAN YOU AND YOUR WIFE !!!!

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You haven't met my Demon.

Tanya 93 said:

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EX TEXASEX said:

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NOBODY WILL CARE ABOUT YOUR KID OR THEIR FUTURE SUCCESS IN LIFE MORE THAN YOU AND YOUR WIFE !!!!

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You haven't met my Demon.

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Have you tried your local motivational tool supply center ??

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch#/media/File:Branches_(DSC_0326).jpg

All 3 of my kids were cheated of time in HS by covidiots as well, so that definitely partially informs my thought process. Even so, I wish we'd kept them home and done more classes at places like One Day Academy for the things that were challenging at home.

We pulled our youngest her senior year (at her request) and and she finished online at Lewisville, another route I would recommend if you are heavily involved in non-school orgs like church, dance, sports, etc. She completed her coursework in about 1/3 the time and it was great for us.

aTmAg said:

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whytho987654 said:

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aTmAg said:

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whytho987654 said:

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AggielandPoultry said:

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Best decision we ever made. 100%

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Well your kid well end up socially awkward, congrats on stunting them

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I've seen plenty of home schooled kids who turned out better socially than those in public schools.

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Ive never met a socially adept person who was homeschooled. I would've hated being homeschooled, you need those interactions with different kids during that crucial development period

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I met several through sports. They would teach their kids at home and then sign them up to activities, like select sports, to interface with other kids. That had the additional benefit of ensuring that the kids that they did interface with weren't "general population" kids, but were kids who were driven and well parented.

They were not only socially adept, they were high achievers to boot.

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This is the part I don't get. You can't shelter them forever from the 'socially inept.' Why would someone not want their kids to learn how to handle all kinds of people. That just seems like a disservice to me. And I am not talking about inner city stuff. I'm talking about a normal high school with normal demographics.

I get a lot of the homeschool logic. I really do. But I do not understand that part at all.

W said:

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I like the approach of school thru 5th grade...and then make the switch before junior high

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Junior high is awful. There's a reason lord of the flies is a bunch of 6th graders: they're old enough to know how to inflict pain but not old enough to appreciate how much damage they're doing. Plus that's the beginning of puberty and all the distractions that come with it. If I were going to recommend 3 grades they'd be 6-8.

I was homeschooled for 6-8 and would offer the following comments:
1) the social misfit fear is overblown, BUT you do need to put the effort into finding other social outlets for your kids. I did karate and boy scouts and had a couple of neighborhood buds that were homeschooled. That was enough.
2) group schooling targets the 40th percentile or so. If you're a little more precocious then you'll learn much more in less time, leaving you to learn other stuff you wouldn't learn in regular school at all (for example, I taught myself to be a pretty decent programmer in middle school)
3) learning to teach yourself is maybe the most valuable skill a person can learn. You can get that in a homeschooling environment.

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I get a lot of the homeschool logic. I really do. But I do not understand that part at all.

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The point you are clinging to has been addressed multiple times. Modern homeschooling uses multiple outlets to provide socialization opportunities.

Some homeschooled kids may be sheltered and excessively so. But that broad brush no longer applies despite how badly you want it to.

agsalaska said:

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aTmAg said:

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whytho987654 said:

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aTmAg said:

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whytho987654 said:

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AggielandPoultry said:

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Best decision we ever made. 100%

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Well your kid well end up socially awkward, congrats on stunting them

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I've seen plenty of home schooled kids who turned out better socially than those in public schools.

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Ive never met a socially adept person who was homeschooled. I would've hated being homeschooled, you need those interactions with different kids during that crucial development period

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I met several through sports. They would teach their kids at home and then sign them up to activities, like select sports, to interface with other kids. That had the additional benefit of ensuring that the kids that they did interface with weren't "general population" kids, but were kids who were driven and well parented.

They were not only socially adept, they were high achievers to boot.

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This is the part I don't get. You can't shelter them forever from the 'socially inept.' Why would someone not want their kids to learn how to handle all kinds of people. That just seems like a disservice to me. And I am not talking about inner city stuff. I'm talking about a normal high school with normal demographics.

I get a lot of the homeschool logic. I really do. But I do not understand that part at all.

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I didn't say "shelter then from the socially inept". I said for parents to keep their own kids from becoming socially inept.

And the notion that we should expose our kids to crack addicts and gang bangers so they learn "how to handle" it is ridiculous. A good parent keeps them away from that crap. If you worry about you kid being able to handle themselves in a fight, then sign them up to judo or something. Don't inject them among bad influences for the hell of it.

agsalaska said:

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aTmAg said:

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whytho987654 said:

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aTmAg said:

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whytho987654 said:

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AggielandPoultry said:

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Best decision we ever made. 100%

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Well your kid well end up socially awkward, congrats on stunting them

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I've seen plenty of home schooled kids who turned out better socially than those in public schools.

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Ive never met a socially adept person who was homeschooled. I would've hated being homeschooled, you need those interactions with different kids during that crucial development period

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I met several through sports. They would teach their kids at home and then sign them up to activities, like select sports, to interface with other kids. That had the additional benefit of ensuring that the kids that they did interface with weren't "general population" kids, but were kids who were driven and well parented.

They were not only socially adept, they were high achievers to boot.

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This is the part I don't get. You can't shelter them forever from the 'socially inept.' Why would someone not want their kids to learn how to handle all kinds of people. That just seems like a disservice to me. And I am not talking about inner city stuff. I'm talking about a normal high school with normal demographics.

I get a lot of the homeschool logic. I really do. But I do not understand that part at all.

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You don't have to handle 'all kinds of people' in the real world? Your life choices largely determine such things. If you choose to be a public school teacher, you get what you get and don't throw a fit. You choose law, accounting, etc. you have a much different pool of employees, customers, and other interactions. You choose where you live, eat, and shop. You really don't have to put up with 'people' unless you want to. It's like the lie that kids eventually have to learn to navigate phones and the internet, so they should have smart phones in 6th grade.

I have a daughter about to graduate and start college and I do not believe she is ready. There was no Academic rigor to prepare her. She doesn't know half of what I did at her age. Honestly I regret leaving her in BISD as to me it is a joke. My wife and I are seriously wrestling what to do with our 5th grader. I used to believe in all the public school stuff but it's crap now. Many of the kids are straight running thugs. They have 0 accountability and don't get any discipline. Even in the advanced classes they enforce no discipline so my daughter isn't getting anything out of the program because the bad kids are disrupting class. I'm tempted to sell our place now and move further out to smaller district and away from this crap.

agsalaska said:

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aTmAg said:

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whytho987654 said:

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aTmAg said:

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whytho987654 said:

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AggielandPoultry said:

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Best decision we ever made. 100%

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Well your kid well end up socially awkward, congrats on stunting them

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I've seen plenty of home schooled kids who turned out better socially than those in public schools.

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Ive never met a socially adept person who was homeschooled. I would've hated being homeschooled, you need those interactions with different kids during that crucial development period

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I met several through sports. They would teach their kids at home and then sign them up to activities, like select sports, to interface with other kids. That had the additional benefit of ensuring that the kids that they did interface with weren't "general population" kids, but were kids who were driven and well parented.

They were not only socially adept, they were high achievers to boot.

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This is the part I don't get. You can't shelter them forever from the 'socially inept.' Why would someone not want their kids to learn how to handle all kinds of people. That just seems like a disservice to me. And I am not talking about inner city stuff. I'm talking about a normal high school with normal demographics.

I get a lot of the homeschool logic. I really do. But I do not understand that part at all.

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You're not sheltering them from "all kinds of people" by homeschooling. You're helping them get a better education. Homeschooled students get far more opportunities for enrichment through coops, parents engaging them, taking them places, etc.

Public school by and large sucks now. Administrators don't hold students accountable. "Honors" classes are watered down. Teachers teach to the lowest common denominator. Most teachers spend significantly more time having to do classroom management rather than teaching. It's gotten significantly worse in the past 4 years (started before Covid - Covid made it go faster).

Even at the "best" public schools, the education is not as good as homeschooled groups. I work at a university. The best students are not from public schools. They are homeschooled/private school.

I was a public school teacher for 10 years previous to the past calendar year. I've seen how my sisters interact with their kids. My mom teaches at a coop. I've seen both sides. Again, from test scores, etc - homeschooled students perform significantly better and have higher critical thinking skills as well as better fundamentals than public schooled students.

Teslag said:

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I can't imagine not having the daily social circle I had every day growing up in school. Academics is important but there's also a social element to school that's hard to replicate on a daily basis.

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School is NOWHERE NEAR the only, or even the most important, social element to many. Clubs (scouting/etc.), sports, church, and other things EASILY fill in the gap.

What people who say these things either ignore or purposely try and hide is the NEGATIVE social element (using your words) that public -- and often private -- school offers.

And I'm saying some of those negatives are actually positives

AggieKatie2 said:

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Thinking a test run over the summer months with a program and schedule may be the best way to feel things out.

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Good luck to you! Best thing we ever did by far. Don't get discouraged if you struggle finding a rhythm in just a few summer months. It took us a couple years to find a flow that worked for us. It will take a while to break the chains of how you feel like it should be going compared to public school.

Always remember the purpose of this is to NOT mimic public school. You'll be amazed at how few hours it actually takes per day. Enjoy the freedom of letting your kid actually get sleep vs up at the crack of dawn, enjoy the downtime YOU get to spend with them vs them being away at school with unknown influences on them for 8-10 hrs a day.

It's been a sacrifice financially in so many ways but we will never regret this extra time we get with our kids and the way we get to instill our own values our own way into them.

We're in our 16th year of homeschooling and it's been great. My wife formed a co-op and our kids have been involved in it, sports, church, and other social gatherings. My oldest is set to graduate from college next year and we'd do it all over.

The great thing about homeschooling is that it's at the kid's pace and each family determines the best way to educate their child. My wife switched up the curricula from year to year based on each kid's learning style. There were even times when she changed it during the year because sometimes just wasn't working.

If you're considering it, I suggest doing it and joining a local co-op. It's worth it.

I'm biased for multiple reasons given my upbringing and family experiences but what makes me cock my head is when I'm out running an errand (work from home a few days a week) or grabbing a quick bite to eat, I see way more school aged children that are just tagging along with lulu lemon mom at target.

It could certainly be over-generalization but living in a somewhat affluent suburb, I think parents shift to this model out of THEIR convenience and wants rather than their kids' wellbeing.

Mom gets to roll around in ugg boots and the Denali all day with 930am Starbucks, why should she have to get her ass up and get the kids out the door at 7am?

Means to an end for families that are fortunate enough to have SAHMs and justify it.

I often work from a local coffee shop on Friday mornings from around 730-9. The amount of "roll out of bed" SAHMs in there with obvious school aged children on an iPad also drinking some sugary $7 drink is baffling to me.

Someone is funding that lifestyle and I'd be willing to bet it isn't a free-spirited, go at your own pace liberal arts professor.

I've seen some good success where kids "rotate" between teachers and subjects. If one parent is really good with math, 3 or 4 kids may be at their house for a couple of hours once or twice a week. The same for other subjects. This did happen in a bigger neighborhood, however.

The Wife had 2 neighborhood girls for math 2 days a week for 2 hours. They were through Algebra 2 and Geometry by the end of their "Sophomore" year. It was neat for us because those days could shift if we went on a trip, and they just got more history or English at someone else's house.

ChoppinDs40 said:

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I'm biased for multiple reasons given my upbringing and family experiences but what makes me cock my head is when I'm out running an errand (work from home a few days a week) or grabbing a quick bite to eat, I see way more school aged children that are just tagging along with lulu lemon mom at target.

It could certainly be over-generalization but living in a somewhat affluent suburb, I think parents shift to this model out of THEIR convenience and wants rather than their kids' wellbeing.

Mom gets to roll around in ugg boots and the Denali all day with 930am Starbucks, why should she have to get her ass up and get the kids out the door at 7am?

Means to an end for families that are fortunate enough to have SAHMs and justify it.

I often work from a local coffee shop on Friday mornings from around 730-9. The amount of "roll out of bed" SAHMs in there with obvious school aged children on an iPad also drinking some sugary $7 drink is baffling to me.

Someone is funding that lifestyle and I'd be willing to bet it isn't a free-spirited, go at your own pace liberal arts professor.

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those kids are usually "home sick" and not homeschooled. i can almost promise you.

my wife has a few of those friends with a random child home at least once a week with a bs injury, appointment, or fake illness.

I'm a stay at home dad. Circumstances and timing made it an option for us to make that decision so that I could care for our autistic son.

We've had to make sacrifices as a family and me personally.

I encounter comments and judgements like yours all the time. "Must be nice to fish all day" and "That kid isn't doing real schoolwork" and "He is wasting his kids life".

The people making these comments don't see the curriculum work he does 6 days a week, including the summer. They don't see the science presentations he does on fish habitats. They don't see the volunteer work he does to bring a fishing event to the children's hospital. They don't see the research he does before and after our 30 plus field trips a year. They don't see that he has literally been to over 1,000 speech and occupational therapy. They don't see the history projects and geography projects he works on at home just for fun. They don't see a lot more than that.

Yet they feel entitled to weigh in - why exactly?

Can you imagine AggieKatie2 at home last night asking her husband "wow, did you see the hornets nest I stirred up on TexAgs today? SHEESH!"

MasonB said:

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I'm a stay at home dad. Circumstances and timing made it an option for us to make that decision so that I could care for our autistic son.

We've had to make sacrifices as a family and me personally.

I encounter comments and judgements like yours all the time. "Must be nice to fish all day" and "That kid isn't doing real schoolwork" and "He is wasting his kids life".

The people making these comments don't see the curriculum work he does 6 days a week, including the summer. They don't see the science presentations he does on fish habitats. They don't see the volunteer work he does to bring a fishing event to the children's hospital. They don't see the research he does before and after our 30 plus field trips a year. They don't see that he has literally been to over 1,000 speech and occupational therapy. They don't see the history projects and geography projects he works on at home just for fun. They don't see a lot more than that.

Yet they feel entitled to weigh in - why exactly?

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Because they don't see. Far too many have a pre-disposition to think of home schooling like it was when they grew up 20 years ago. It's vastly changed (obviously you know that).

Having just left public school teaching and seeing what home schooling can be - if the parents put in the work, homeschooling is vastly superior to public school teaching in every way. If someone can't see it, they're living in denial.