11 ms·

We are in our ninth year of homeschooling. My wife and I attended private and public schools and grew up with typical biases against homeschooling, e.g. they l

by jawns 3y ago

We are in our ninth year of homeschooling. My wife and I attended private and public schools and grew up with typical biases against homeschooling, e.g. they lack social skills. When we got married, we always assumed we'd send our kids to traditional schools. What we learned, though, is that homeschooling has changed since we were in school. Back then, it was a niche, and the sort of parents who chose to homeschool usually existed on the fringe (and probably lacked social skills themselves). Nowadays, there are a lot more "normal" families who choose to homeschool. Our family, and many others we've encountered, values and promotes social skills. Our kids attend co-ops, play sports, and do other activities with their peers. And because the demographics of homeschoolers have changed, so too have the ways that they homeschool. It's not very surprising that there is more collaborative teaching, where parents remain the primary educators, but certain subjects are outsourced to co-ops, online sessions on Outschool, etc.

mythrwy 3y ago
The argument about lack of socialization from failure to attend public school might have some basis. But thinking back, I came out of the public schools with some pretty anti social behaviors and attitudes that I picked up there. Being cool is so important at that age in that setting. I often wonder what life would have been like had I been taken out say, age 12 or 13 and given a more solid education to match my natural inclinations away from the cruelty, the misbehavior and the general time wasting that characterizes much of public school in the US. Kuddos to you for putting in the effort to give your kids the best possible real education. It has to be a lot of work.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Is public school really that cruel these days? I have a 10 year old, and everyone in her class seems so wholesome and... exceedingly tolerant for lack of a better phrase. Compared to when I was a 10 year old where public school was a Lord Of The Flies thunderdome with bullying, and shoving people into lockers, and fights, and in-groups and out-groups and nerds vs. jocks, all the cruel 80s stereotypes. Sure, there's the occasional story of extreme bullying that happens to make the news, but it seems like these are far outliers these days. I see absolutely zero need to pull her out. The academics are ok--not what an expensive private school might offer, but they track well with what I was learning at that age. The social/institutional environment is much better than when I was a kid. The few parents I know who homeschool (admittedly, mostly from my wife's church group) do so for religious separatism reasons, not for educational outcome. They object to public school on ideological grounds and perceived "indoctrination," not on the academics.
  - ufmace 3y ago
    It's probably impossible to generalize among all public schools. Some are and some aren't to various degrees depending on a thousand factors. The problem is more like, how do you realize if a particular public school class is bad and what are your practical options once you do.
  - mythrwy 3y ago
    I don't know about today and don't have kids. This was in the late 70's/ 80's. It was as you say, Lord of The Flies indeed. Good to hear maybe it has improved. Or maybe the bullying is all online now. I'd like to point out, 10 years old isn't really in the thick of it yet. Might rethink your statement say, Junior year of high school.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    > Is public school really that cruel these days? This is a good question, but how am I supposed to find out the answer with any real certainty short of exposing my kids to it? Not really a sane option. "Hey, kiddo, go dance on the minefield and see if there are any left" isn't my style of parenting. > Sure, there's the occasional story of extreme bullying that happens to make the news, but it seems like these are far outliers these days. It's quite possible that the extremes are just the ones that make the news. The low-intensity torment is in my opinion just as traumatizing, but unless some parent raises a big stink about it then it usually doesn't even rise to the level of neighborhood gossip.
  - 1123581321 3y ago
    Still lots of problems (more in middle and high school) but it’s easier to today to discover and move to where the schools are better. Homeschooling in areas with poor public schools tends to be focused on academics and a better environment although the desire to provide religious education exists everywhere. An area where few homeschooling families exist would probably have high graduation rates and low crime rates in its public schools.
  - anon291 3y ago
    Excessive tolerance is a form of cruelty.
- jawns 3y ago
  That argument held sway with me for a long time, but not anymore. Our kids get a decent amount of socialization through all the activities they're involved in, and when other kids find out they're homeschooled, their response is more often genuine surprise rather than "Oh, that figures." The idea that kids learn social skills best by being thrown into a rigid, institutional environment surrounded by hundreds of other kids whose social skills are also far from developed is kinda silly, though. It's like saying criminals will reform themselves best by surrounding themselves with lots of other criminals.
  - zerbinxx 3y ago
    One good thing about the rigid institutional environment, for better or worse, is that having exposure to that rigidity and institutional side of things can at least give kids some skills in the long run for navigating the anti-human organizations that form so much of our public and private sectors.
    - tomp 3y ago
      Almost all other societal structures are way less rigid and tyrannical. Name another institution where inmates have to ask for permission to go to the toilet, besides school and jail. Edit: or another institution where people can attack you and you can’t call police to help you.
      - acka 3y ago
        > Name another institution where inmates have to ask for permission to go to the toilet, besides school and jail. Busy call centers, fast food restaurants. Factories: assembly line workers. Chemical plants: process operators. I don't mean to be snarky but I think you would be surprised at the percentage of the population working jobs where they cannot simply leave their station without permission. > Edit: or another institution where people can attack you and you can’t call police to help you. The military: active duty personnel deployed to war zones.
      - fallingknife 3y ago
- foogazi 3y ago
  > Being cool is so important at that age in that setting. is it ? Maybe it just comes down to personality In my mind I was so uncool that the only way to win was not to play
  - bawolff 3y ago
    > In my mind I was so uncool that the only way to win was not to play I mean, if you are thinking about it in those terms it sounds like it was pretty important.
- roughly 3y ago
  A relative is homeschooling their kids, and they’re not doing a great job of it academically, but those kids are some of the sweetest, most light hearted and caring kids I’ve ever been around. I learned some socialization at public school, sure. I also learned what it was to have a bureaucracy just roll over you because nobody involved cared enough to notice you were there. Those kids will have that experience eventually, but I’m all for delaying it.
  - AlwaysRock 3y ago
    Being sweet or conforming to a parents/adults idea of what a good child should act like does not equate to good social skills. It means they understand how to act around adults, likely, because they are around their parents regularly and have that behavior engrained. That has nothing to do with their ability to socialize with their peers. This is a pretty common home school kid issue. Great with adults. Not great with other kids. Adults don't care because they are well behaved and the kids dont know how to vocalize that they have difficulties socializing with others their age.
- hackerlight 3y ago
  The socialization argument is nonsense. Schools as factory farms came first -- with no regard for socialization -- then the socialization argument was made later to rationalize it. Forcing kids (by constructing their environment in such a way) to have only relationships with kids that are precisely the same age as them is weird. Some healthy relationships with people who are a few years older in positive. Older kids/people need to be embedded in the social circle as role models. You get less bullying and should get faster social development. Homeschooling done right is more similar to how kids developed socially in our ancestral past (all the way up to a few hundred years ago). It's also more similar to how kids develop in much of the world outside of the West where larger family units are more tight knit.
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    Yeah things were much better when most people were illiterate but Protestants had to go and mess it up with their ideas that people should be able to read.
- enkid 3y ago
  There is no and has never been any true evidence that home schooled kids are worse at socialization then the ones that go to a traditional school, at least as far as I can tell. It's a meme that people propagate because it is "common sense," but none of the studies I've looked at supports it.
  - gemstones 3y ago
    I was homeschooled and the anecdotal evidence is overwhelming. Try finding adults who were homeschooled who speak fondly of the experience.
    - enkid 3y ago
      I have known several. I've also known an overwhelming number of people from public and private schools who hated those experiences.
jimmytucson 3y ago
How much time does homeschooling take for you? Does it roughly equate to one full-time job? I have wanted to homeschool my kids but I am afraid I would have to quit my job or downshift to part-time. And since they are different ages, I worry that if I taught them all at the same time, the curriculum would average into something too challenging for the younger and not challenging enough for the elder. How do you manage to meet all their needs at once?
- baryphonic 3y ago
  I homeschool my two kids. I was worried about the time commitment at first, but it's honestly quite small. At most, I spend two hours in the morning for both kids. Typical mornings are an hour to an hour and a half. Some subjects like social studies we do together (my kids are two years apart). Others, like math or language arts, are per child (I usually have the other one read or practice piano when giving a one-on-one lesson). My wife does a lot of the supplemental activities like taking them to our co-op or to museums. A lot of time in public schools is either wasted or simply a consequence of classes having ~30 students each. I also find that homeschool kids can be taught the discipline to work on their own after a lesson. I check the work in the evenings or before school starts in the morning. I can understand why many people might not want to homeschool, but I find it's been a blessing for my kids & our family.
  - theonething 3y ago
    So did you work while you were homeschooling your kids?
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  Motivated children can easily outpace public-schooled children with 3 or 4 days a week at 3 hours a day. They can be very self-directed, but the trouble with it is they go down rabbit holes and they'll excel at one or two subjects to the detriment of others. My daughter would want to spend 6-10 hours a day on art, but wouldn't want to do her French or math homework. My son just told me that alef (in the Hebrew alphabet) was the symbol for Graham's number, but balks when I try to get him to memorize his multiplication tables. > And since they are different ages, I worry that if I taught them all at the same time, the curriculum would average into something too challenging If there is a subject where that is the case, I do not know what it would be. Once they're past the age of 7 or 8, most or all children are capable of what they would be at older ages. I don't think, for instance, that an 8 yr old learning to read is slower at it than one learning that for the first time at age 14. For the record though, didn't get to teach my son to read. With his sister, I tried from age three on up... every few months I'd see if she was more agreeable to it, and she wanted nothing to do with it until sevenish. She could sound words out phonetically if I pushed from the start, but with a look on her face like I was pulling teeth with pliers. So I waited with my son until he was almost seven... and he could just read. I have no idea how. My wife claims she didn't, and his sister certainly didn't either. I think, really, that public schools doing age segregation has more to do with them trying to perfectly homogenize the product they crank off the assembly line, than it does with making sure each student gets enough learning opportunity.
NickM 3y ago
Speaking from experience, there were plenty of normal families who chose homeschooling decades ago. The problem is that the weird people make a lot of noise, and then homeschooling gets a reputation, which causes the self-aware normal folks to shy away from talking about homeschooling too publicly because they don't want to be associated with the negative stereotypes. The trouble is, this can become a feedback loop, because the only way to dispel the stereotypes is if more normal folks speak up. I've seen this same phenomenon affect other subcultures too, and I suspect there's probably a name for it, but I don't know what it is.
homeskool111 3y ago
[flagged]
- abnry 3y ago
  Very, very wrong. I know numerous homeschooled peers who have advanced degrees, including PhDs.
  - bigbillheck 3y ago
    You know what they say about the plural of 'anecdote'.
    - abnry 3y ago
      Of course, but I can respond to anecdotes with anecdotes.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  I mean it greatly depends on the quality and dedication of the parents doing the homeschooling. I never considered it for my kids because our public schools are pretty good, and I did not feel I had the experience or resources or time to do any better. But some people have more of a passion for it and find answers to those issues. I'm sure there are kids who are poorly homeschooled, but your anecdote does not meany anything in the big picture. Shall I tell you about all the public-school kids I met who ended up flunking out of college?
- lieut_data 3y ago
  Homeschooler here, from the era before this modern trend. Definitely grew up around students with poor social skills -— and even started out that way myself! —- but I graduated university with honours in computer science and have a successful career in software engineering. I could share lots of anecdotes in the reverse, but that’s really all they are. Either way, homeschooling wasn’t nonsense for me, and I’m choosing to continue that legacy with my children alongside this next generation of parents who believe homeschooling is the best option for their family.
- 3y ago
AlwaysRock 3y ago
Just as a counterpoint... I was homeschooled from 2nd grade until sophomore year of high school. I played sports the entire time (was the captain of various teams), had plenty of friends, and was pretty social. Even still, I felt like my social skills were significantly stunted when compared to others my age. It took a long time for me to feel comfortable just hanging out with others because most of my social time was spent doing activities. Was in high school ~10 years ago and the other homeschool families we knew were a mix of farm/ultra religious low social skill homeschoolers and fairly normal folks with decent social skills. TLDR: I think there is a social aspect of being in school that homeschool kids miss out on, regardless of how many extracurricular or sports they may do.
- edmundsauto 3y ago
  I was public schooled and also felt uncomfortable sitting around hanging out, without a purpose or a goal or activity. May not be home schooling that is the cause - people are just different.
  - AlwaysRock 3y ago
    I feel that same way but I wouldnt lump that in with social skills. When I went to a public high school we didnt do a lot of sitting around and hanging out. We went to classes.
- rayiner 3y ago
  What do you mean by "social skills?" As an immigrant with parents who limited social activity with peers, growing up I felt handicapped by my social skills in some areas (particularly dating, which my parents discouraged up to the moment they started asking for grandchildren). Now I'm pushing 40 with three kids and a real job, I realized I had just learned a different set of social skills. Because I was always expected to converse with and participate in activities with adults, I had no trouble when it came to joining the workforce, interacting with bosses, etc. And whatever discomfort I had navigating the artificial social context of age-segregated school just didn't matter--it wasn't a valuable skill outside that unique context.
rayiner 3y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
el_benhameen 3y ago
If you’re willing to share, I’m curious to hear what changed your mind about homeschooling and what made you choose to homeschool your kids.
- jawns 3y ago
  There were a few things that led to us recognizing and adjusting our biases. But what led us to homeschool ourselves was pretty straightforward. My wife was a teacher in private schools for about 7 years, and once our oldest was ready for kindergarten, we decided that she could either go out and teach other people's kids, or she could homeschool and teach her own kids.
  - SamBam 3y ago
    If I could pry further, that doesn't seem a "straightforward" answer to me, it sounds a little pat. Both my wife and I are teachers, and have kids, and we don't have a problem "teaching other people's children" -- that's why we went into teaching.
    - ryzvonusef 3y ago
      I assume the cost of the children's formal education (private school might have discounts for employees, but they still probably have to pay some fees), plus possibly the lower salary of teachers might have been a factor. (also daycare costs for the kids not school going age yet) If they are saving money by not paying school fees, and having to transport family and wife to the school/daycare everyday, and they are getting a professional qualified teacher at home, with a very favourable teacher : student ratio and unlimited teaching time.... well I can understand why they are willing to take the hit of losing the teacher-spouse's salary.
gemstones 3y ago
As a homeschooled kid: Be warned that I heard “homeschooling has changed since we were in school” in the early 2000s, from multiple parents who are now estranged from their adult children. It hasn’t really changed that much - it’s just something parents like to tell themselves to avoid thinking about the experiences their children are missing.
- lolinder 3y ago
  It sounds like you had a rough experience. I'm sorry about that. That said, for a lot of families homeschooling had changed by the late 90s and early 2000s. I was homeschooled around that time with my siblings, as were my wife and her family. We all still have great relationships with our parents, and our homeschool experiences were very far from the stereotypes. We participated in many different co-ops. We took every AP class offered at the local high school. We're all functional adults with normal social lives. It's obviously hard to come to any conclusions from warring anecdotes alone, but I thought it's worth sharing mine. Strained relationships with adult children suck, but they're not a given when homeschooling, nor does sending your kids to public school necessarily save your relationship with your kids.
  - gemstones 3y ago
    12/13 of the circle of homeschooling families that made up our socialization group in the 90s/00s have gone no contact with their parents now. Congrats on your success, it’s not the norm.
    - lolinder 3y ago
      Not the norm within your social group, which was presumably mutually selected by your respective parents. That suggests that these families are not 13 independent data points, but rather a group of 13 families that all had similar predispositions and evolved along similar lines. I'd like to see the stats overall before coming to a conclusion about what the norm is.
      - 3y ago
ryzvonusef 3y ago
could you share more about the mechanics of it? Do you have a separate "school" room? All the kids in one room, or separately? How many hours each day? How effective is your spouse in partitioning the "parent vs teacher" roles? How does your spouse manage to handle your kids in different "classes" (and thus education stages) at the same time? I understand to Home-school in some US states, you are supposed to follow some sort of curriculum, how much flexibility do you have?

by jawns 3y ago

mythrwy 3y ago

The argument about lack of socialization from failure to attend public school might have some basis. But thinking back, I came out of the public schools with some pretty anti social behaviors and attitudes that I picked up there. Being cool is so important at that age in that setting. I often wonder what life would have been like had I been taken out say, age 12 or 13 and given a more solid education to match my natural inclinations away from the cruelty, the misbehavior and the general time wasting that characterizes much of public school in the US. Kuddos to you for putting in the effort to give your kids the best possible real education. It has to be a lot of work.

ryandrake 3y ago
Is public school really that cruel these days? I have a 10 year old, and everyone in her class seems so wholesome and... exceedingly tolerant for lack of a better phrase. Compared to when I was a 10 year old where public school was a Lord Of The Flies thunderdome with bullying, and shoving people into lockers, and fights, and in-groups and out-groups and nerds vs. jocks, all the cruel 80s stereotypes. Sure, there's the occasional story of extreme bullying that happens to make the news, but it seems like these are far outliers these days. I see absolutely zero need to pull her out. The academics are ok--not what an expensive private school might offer, but they track well with what I was learning at that age. The social/institutional environment is much better than when I was a kid. The few parents I know who homeschool (admittedly, mostly from my wife's church group) do so for religious separatism reasons, not for educational outcome. They object to public school on ideological grounds and perceived "indoctrination," not on the academics.
- ufmace 3y ago
  It's probably impossible to generalize among all public schools. Some are and some aren't to various degrees depending on a thousand factors. The problem is more like, how do you realize if a particular public school class is bad and what are your practical options once you do.
- mythrwy 3y ago
  I don't know about today and don't have kids. This was in the late 70's/ 80's. It was as you say, Lord of The Flies indeed. Good to hear maybe it has improved. Or maybe the bullying is all online now. I'd like to point out, 10 years old isn't really in the thick of it yet. Might rethink your statement say, Junior year of high school.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  > Is public school really that cruel these days? This is a good question, but how am I supposed to find out the answer with any real certainty short of exposing my kids to it? Not really a sane option. "Hey, kiddo, go dance on the minefield and see if there are any left" isn't my style of parenting. > Sure, there's the occasional story of extreme bullying that happens to make the news, but it seems like these are far outliers these days. It's quite possible that the extremes are just the ones that make the news. The low-intensity torment is in my opinion just as traumatizing, but unless some parent raises a big stink about it then it usually doesn't even rise to the level of neighborhood gossip.
- 1123581321 3y ago
  Still lots of problems (more in middle and high school) but it’s easier to today to discover and move to where the schools are better. Homeschooling in areas with poor public schools tends to be focused on academics and a better environment although the desire to provide religious education exists everywhere. An area where few homeschooling families exist would probably have high graduation rates and low crime rates in its public schools.
- anon291 3y ago
  Excessive tolerance is a form of cruelty.
jawns 3y ago
That argument held sway with me for a long time, but not anymore. Our kids get a decent amount of socialization through all the activities they're involved in, and when other kids find out they're homeschooled, their response is more often genuine surprise rather than "Oh, that figures." The idea that kids learn social skills best by being thrown into a rigid, institutional environment surrounded by hundreds of other kids whose social skills are also far from developed is kinda silly, though. It's like saying criminals will reform themselves best by surrounding themselves with lots of other criminals.
- zerbinxx 3y ago
  One good thing about the rigid institutional environment, for better or worse, is that having exposure to that rigidity and institutional side of things can at least give kids some skills in the long run for navigating the anti-human organizations that form so much of our public and private sectors.
  - tomp 3y ago
    Almost all other societal structures are way less rigid and tyrannical. Name another institution where inmates have to ask for permission to go to the toilet, besides school and jail. Edit: or another institution where people can attack you and you can’t call police to help you.
    - acka 3y ago
      > Name another institution where inmates have to ask for permission to go to the toilet, besides school and jail. Busy call centers, fast food restaurants. Factories: assembly line workers. Chemical plants: process operators. I don't mean to be snarky but I think you would be surprised at the percentage of the population working jobs where they cannot simply leave their station without permission. > Edit: or another institution where people can attack you and you can’t call police to help you. The military: active duty personnel deployed to war zones.
    - fallingknife 3y ago
foogazi 3y ago
> Being cool is so important at that age in that setting. is it ? Maybe it just comes down to personality In my mind I was so uncool that the only way to win was not to play
- bawolff 3y ago
  > In my mind I was so uncool that the only way to win was not to play I mean, if you are thinking about it in those terms it sounds like it was pretty important.
roughly 3y ago
A relative is homeschooling their kids, and they’re not doing a great job of it academically, but those kids are some of the sweetest, most light hearted and caring kids I’ve ever been around. I learned some socialization at public school, sure. I also learned what it was to have a bureaucracy just roll over you because nobody involved cared enough to notice you were there. Those kids will have that experience eventually, but I’m all for delaying it.
- AlwaysRock 3y ago
  Being sweet or conforming to a parents/adults idea of what a good child should act like does not equate to good social skills. It means they understand how to act around adults, likely, because they are around their parents regularly and have that behavior engrained. That has nothing to do with their ability to socialize with their peers. This is a pretty common home school kid issue. Great with adults. Not great with other kids. Adults don't care because they are well behaved and the kids dont know how to vocalize that they have difficulties socializing with others their age.
hackerlight 3y ago
The socialization argument is nonsense. Schools as factory farms came first -- with no regard for socialization -- then the socialization argument was made later to rationalize it. Forcing kids (by constructing their environment in such a way) to have only relationships with kids that are precisely the same age as them is weird. Some healthy relationships with people who are a few years older in positive. Older kids/people need to be embedded in the social circle as role models. You get less bullying and should get faster social development. Homeschooling done right is more similar to how kids developed socially in our ancestral past (all the way up to a few hundred years ago). It's also more similar to how kids develop in much of the world outside of the West where larger family units are more tight knit.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  Yeah things were much better when most people were illiterate but Protestants had to go and mess it up with their ideas that people should be able to read.
enkid 3y ago
There is no and has never been any true evidence that home schooled kids are worse at socialization then the ones that go to a traditional school, at least as far as I can tell. It's a meme that people propagate because it is "common sense," but none of the studies I've looked at supports it.
- gemstones 3y ago
  I was homeschooled and the anecdotal evidence is overwhelming. Try finding adults who were homeschooled who speak fondly of the experience.
  - enkid 3y ago
    I have known several. I've also known an overwhelming number of people from public and private schools who hated those experiences.

jimmytucson 3y ago

How much time does homeschooling take for you? Does it roughly equate to one full-time job? I have wanted to homeschool my kids but I am afraid I would have to quit my job or downshift to part-time. And since they are different ages, I worry that if I taught them all at the same time, the curriculum would average into something too challenging for the younger and not challenging enough for the elder. How do you manage to meet all their needs at once?

baryphonic 3y ago
I homeschool my two kids. I was worried about the time commitment at first, but it's honestly quite small. At most, I spend two hours in the morning for both kids. Typical mornings are an hour to an hour and a half. Some subjects like social studies we do together (my kids are two years apart). Others, like math or language arts, are per child (I usually have the other one read or practice piano when giving a one-on-one lesson). My wife does a lot of the supplemental activities like taking them to our co-op or to museums. A lot of time in public schools is either wasted or simply a consequence of classes having ~30 students each. I also find that homeschool kids can be taught the discipline to work on their own after a lesson. I check the work in the evenings or before school starts in the morning. I can understand why many people might not want to homeschool, but I find it's been a blessing for my kids & our family.
- theonething 3y ago
  So did you work while you were homeschooling your kids?
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
Motivated children can easily outpace public-schooled children with 3 or 4 days a week at 3 hours a day. They can be very self-directed, but the trouble with it is they go down rabbit holes and they'll excel at one or two subjects to the detriment of others. My daughter would want to spend 6-10 hours a day on art, but wouldn't want to do her French or math homework. My son just told me that alef (in the Hebrew alphabet) was the symbol for Graham's number, but balks when I try to get him to memorize his multiplication tables. > And since they are different ages, I worry that if I taught them all at the same time, the curriculum would average into something too challenging If there is a subject where that is the case, I do not know what it would be. Once they're past the age of 7 or 8, most or all children are capable of what they would be at older ages. I don't think, for instance, that an 8 yr old learning to read is slower at it than one learning that for the first time at age 14. For the record though, didn't get to teach my son to read. With his sister, I tried from age three on up... every few months I'd see if she was more agreeable to it, and she wanted nothing to do with it until sevenish. She could sound words out phonetically if I pushed from the start, but with a look on her face like I was pulling teeth with pliers. So I waited with my son until he was almost seven... and he could just read. I have no idea how. My wife claims she didn't, and his sister certainly didn't either. I think, really, that public schools doing age segregation has more to do with them trying to perfectly homogenize the product they crank off the assembly line, than it does with making sure each student gets enough learning opportunity.

NickM 3y ago

Speaking from experience, there were plenty of normal families who chose homeschooling decades ago. The problem is that the weird people make a lot of noise, and then homeschooling gets a reputation, which causes the self-aware normal folks to shy away from talking about homeschooling too publicly because they don't want to be associated with the negative stereotypes. The trouble is, this can become a feedback loop, because the only way to dispel the stereotypes is if more normal folks speak up. I've seen this same phenomenon affect other subcultures too, and I suspect there's probably a name for it, but I don't know what it is.

homeskool111 3y ago

[flagged]

abnry 3y ago
Very, very wrong. I know numerous homeschooled peers who have advanced degrees, including PhDs.
- bigbillheck 3y ago
  You know what they say about the plural of 'anecdote'.
  - abnry 3y ago
    Of course, but I can respond to anecdotes with anecdotes.
SoftTalker 3y ago
I mean it greatly depends on the quality and dedication of the parents doing the homeschooling. I never considered it for my kids because our public schools are pretty good, and I did not feel I had the experience or resources or time to do any better. But some people have more of a passion for it and find answers to those issues. I'm sure there are kids who are poorly homeschooled, but your anecdote does not meany anything in the big picture. Shall I tell you about all the public-school kids I met who ended up flunking out of college?
lieut_data 3y ago
Homeschooler here, from the era before this modern trend. Definitely grew up around students with poor social skills -— and even started out that way myself! —- but I graduated university with honours in computer science and have a successful career in software engineering. I could share lots of anecdotes in the reverse, but that’s really all they are. Either way, homeschooling wasn’t nonsense for me, and I’m choosing to continue that legacy with my children alongside this next generation of parents who believe homeschooling is the best option for their family.
3y ago

AlwaysRock 3y ago

Just as a counterpoint... I was homeschooled from 2nd grade until sophomore year of high school. I played sports the entire time (was the captain of various teams), had plenty of friends, and was pretty social. Even still, I felt like my social skills were significantly stunted when compared to others my age. It took a long time for me to feel comfortable just hanging out with others because most of my social time was spent doing activities. Was in high school ~10 years ago and the other homeschool families we knew were a mix of farm/ultra religious low social skill homeschoolers and fairly normal folks with decent social skills. TLDR: I think there is a social aspect of being in school that homeschool kids miss out on, regardless of how many extracurricular or sports they may do.

edmundsauto 3y ago
I was public schooled and also felt uncomfortable sitting around hanging out, without a purpose or a goal or activity. May not be home schooling that is the cause - people are just different.
- AlwaysRock 3y ago
  I feel that same way but I wouldnt lump that in with social skills. When I went to a public high school we didnt do a lot of sitting around and hanging out. We went to classes.
rayiner 3y ago
What do you mean by "social skills?" As an immigrant with parents who limited social activity with peers, growing up I felt handicapped by my social skills in some areas (particularly dating, which my parents discouraged up to the moment they started asking for grandchildren). Now I'm pushing 40 with three kids and a real job, I realized I had just learned a different set of social skills. Because I was always expected to converse with and participate in activities with adults, I had no trouble when it came to joining the workforce, interacting with bosses, etc. And whatever discomfort I had navigating the artificial social context of age-segregated school just didn't matter--it wasn't a valuable skill outside that unique context.

rayiner 3y ago

[flagged]

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

el_benhameen 3y ago

If you’re willing to share, I’m curious to hear what changed your mind about homeschooling and what made you choose to homeschool your kids.

jawns 3y ago
There were a few things that led to us recognizing and adjusting our biases. But what led us to homeschool ourselves was pretty straightforward. My wife was a teacher in private schools for about 7 years, and once our oldest was ready for kindergarten, we decided that she could either go out and teach other people's kids, or she could homeschool and teach her own kids.
- SamBam 3y ago
  If I could pry further, that doesn't seem a "straightforward" answer to me, it sounds a little pat. Both my wife and I are teachers, and have kids, and we don't have a problem "teaching other people's children" -- that's why we went into teaching.
  - ryzvonusef 3y ago
    I assume the cost of the children's formal education (private school might have discounts for employees, but they still probably have to pay some fees), plus possibly the lower salary of teachers might have been a factor. (also daycare costs for the kids not school going age yet) If they are saving money by not paying school fees, and having to transport family and wife to the school/daycare everyday, and they are getting a professional qualified teacher at home, with a very favourable teacher : student ratio and unlimited teaching time.... well I can understand why they are willing to take the hit of losing the teacher-spouse's salary.

gemstones 3y ago

As a homeschooled kid: Be warned that I heard “homeschooling has changed since we were in school” in the early 2000s, from multiple parents who are now estranged from their adult children. It hasn’t really changed that much - it’s just something parents like to tell themselves to avoid thinking about the experiences their children are missing.

lolinder 3y ago
It sounds like you had a rough experience. I'm sorry about that. That said, for a lot of families homeschooling had changed by the late 90s and early 2000s. I was homeschooled around that time with my siblings, as were my wife and her family. We all still have great relationships with our parents, and our homeschool experiences were very far from the stereotypes. We participated in many different co-ops. We took every AP class offered at the local high school. We're all functional adults with normal social lives. It's obviously hard to come to any conclusions from warring anecdotes alone, but I thought it's worth sharing mine. Strained relationships with adult children suck, but they're not a given when homeschooling, nor does sending your kids to public school necessarily save your relationship with your kids.
- gemstones 3y ago
  12/13 of the circle of homeschooling families that made up our socialization group in the 90s/00s have gone no contact with their parents now. Congrats on your success, it’s not the norm.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    Not the norm within your social group, which was presumably mutually selected by your respective parents. That suggests that these families are not 13 independent data points, but rather a group of 13 families that all had similar predispositions and evolved along similar lines. I'd like to see the stats overall before coming to a conclusion about what the norm is.
    - 3y ago

ryzvonusef 3y ago

could you share more about the mechanics of it? Do you have a separate "school" room? All the kids in one room, or separately? How many hours each day? How effective is your spouse in partitioning the "parent vs teacher" roles? How does your spouse manage to handle your kids in different "classes" (and thus education stages) at the same time? I understand to Home-school in some US states, you are supposed to follow some sort of curriculum, how much flexibility do you have?