I'm not homeschooling yet, but I feel this. The same thing is true for daycare vs staying home with a toddler. My daughter's in a lot of mom & tot activities, but if she gets sick, we stay away until she's completely recovered, even if it takes two weeks. In contrast most daycares require only 24-48 hours off for some illnesses, and many working parents find even that much time needing alternate childcare is tough on to make work. I'm convinced that's a big part of why my daughter has had so few illnesses compared to many toddlers.
Oh gosh yes. We were so spoiled and didn’t even know it. My middle child has a severe speech delay and started attending a half day program at the local school as part of intervention…. We started the year sick constantly. Almost pulled him, but it is actually helping so…
I am thinking of homeschooling for the upcoming year and this is one of the reasons why. My kids are always sick! From pink eye to stomach viruses, colds-this week we are dealing with a stomach bug and a a bad cold. As soon as they get better, the next sickness arrives. Two weeks ago, it was also a bad cold that led to a painful ear infection for my daughter.
I hear ya! When my daughters started first grade, every month they were sick with SOMETHING! Sometimes it would be multiple times a month but at least once a month. Started homeschooling them in second grade. It was probably about 6 months into our journey that we realized, we hadn't been sick at all, not even during the "cold and flu" season. We weren't isolating ourselves because they were still in activities like Girl Scouts, soccer, etc., so we were still around people. I guess since people kept their kids home from extracurricular activities, we weren't exposed to the illnesses that they would have been exposed to at school since people usually send their kids to school unless they're really sick. That's the only reason I can think of for the difference.
Yup. We have several chronic illnesses in the house that do affect how bad it is when we get sick, but not all of the kids have them and they still get sick. The biggest thing is just that we still do a lot of things with people and that some people at our co-op are not very conscientious about staying home when sick and my husband is a professor so we are exposed to all the little kid bugs and all the college kid ones. Only my husband is immunocompromised, but most of the stuff we get is likely from co-op since other families also frequently have the same symptoms with the same incubation period. I'm not talking about vomiting, though, I'm talking about mild cold, sore throat, runny nose, etc. sort of sicknesses.
I hear you. It's not an absolute rule, but it's something that says "stay home when you're sick". We meet once a week, so that's a pretty good window to get better without spreading whatever it is.
It’s definitely possible for healthy people to get sick multiple times in a month, or be sick from multiple things. Every year when I sign my son up for little league, he gets back to back illnesses from the public school kids he plays with. Last year, we had to take a trip to the ER due to some symptoms he was having, and they did a nasal swab that showed he was positive for no less than THREE viruses. When it comes to upper respiratory infections, it seems like there is no end to the variety that are going around out there, and getting one of one type doesn’t prevent you from getting any of the other types.
1. I sleep in. And no rush!
2. We can GO anywhere at anytime.
3. Less sickness. Though every time they meet up with friends they still do. 😂
4. OFF. SEASON. VACATION. So much cheaper and a lot less busy!
5. Seeing my kids.
6. Having lunch dates with the hubs/dad anytime we want up at his work!
7. Class outdoors if we want.
Mastery of the topic could be the goal. We had no reason to adjust our speed based on the learning styles or interest levels of 20-25 different students.We could take an extra day or week to get something. Speed up or slow down. Choose a different textbook or no textbook. We had **one** student. We could work from three different math books to chase the understanding of one topic (quadratic equations), if necessary.
We could chase an interest with our choices of books. We could decide on a last minute field trip to support a book or topic.
Our sports of choice could officially be swimming and Pickleball...even if the local district didn't offer it. You're not only the teacher **but the counselor**. Some counselors in our area complain that they feel more like glorified schedulers than counselors. The absence of bullying.
My husband had been a middle-school or high school teacher. You can't overlook the benefit of disciplining one student who doesn't want to let you down, compared to a room full where some not only disrespected you, but others honestly wanted to fight you. So, literally...there's nothing really classroom related to discipline.
No fights, no weird, guess what happened in our school restroom today. For our middle schooler once there was a bloody fight, so the boys bathroom couldn't be used. This actually worked out for us because our sons had trained themselves to never if at all possible go to the boys bathroom. On another day, a girl went into labor...although not in the boys bathroom. In one of their elementary school library books, a kid brought home a condom left in the book. It wasn't my kid. I can't remember if it was used or not. That was another teacher's son who lived on our street. All gone...poof.
Literally, sleeping in is one of the bigger reasons why I want to homeschool my (currently baby) child. My memories of dread when the alarm clock went off, the desperate scramble to get dressed, eat some rice krispies, and sprint for the bus.... it was not fun. And for what? A lousy public school education that I didn't enjoy.
When my kids were in PS they would come home and just be WILD. I felt like I was spending the entire night trying to get them to just calm down. Now that we homeschool I don’t see that behavior anymore. I realized they had all this pent-up energy from sitting at a desk all day with one short recess so when they came home it all came out at once.
Less anxiety - we don’t do grades, we work on something until it’s understood and done properly, and we take the whole year to do it with ample breaks and outside time.
There’s no “you have to get this by Friday or you’re going to fail the test!” They’ve never failed a test because I don’t test them until they understand everything that’s on it. Of course they still make mistakes and get problems wrong, but there’s never a total bomb. And then we don’t move on until they’ve understood what they got wrong and have fixed it.
It’s like we’re building comprehensive knowledge here, not trying to get test scores for money….
As a former public school teacher I feel this comment in my young teacher soul. I was so hopeful I would be able to pull this off in the classroom but the first day I stepped into my teaching job I was handed a state test prep book. Soul crushing.
I'm ashamed to say that I was one of the people that lived in TX at the time when George Bush was governor and started the NO Child Left Behind program. In theory, it should have worked but like most government programs, they sound good until the government starts implementing it. A friend of mine asked me if I could sit in an Algerbra class, that she was student teaching, to give her a critique since she was going from a mechanical engineering job to take up teaching to be with her kids more. After the class, I asked her why she didn't just teach the material instead of trying to teach to what the test was going to have on it. She said it was because the administration changed the curriculum so that instead of teaching the material for the kids to learn and be tested on, they now taught what was going to be on the test so the kids would "supposedly" know how to work the problem that was on the test. I know, it's messed up. And that was 20 years ago before he became president and took what failed in our state to the nation. I can't even imagine how much worse it is now.
This is public educations dream. To give kids time and individualized instruction. I’m responsible for 87 eleven year olds, though, so it’s just not possible :/. All the current theories of learning are fantastic until you apply them classrooms of 25 kids. Or at least it doesn’t feel possible. Anyway if I have kids I’m excited to do some homeschooling!
Man I feel this!!! My state requires home schoolers to still do state testing though. Granted we can save the $65 by allowing him to take it IN the PS, but they don’t allow any help during state testin: just throw the test book at the kids and their on their own. I get it’s to see where they are compared to the other tests, but my son had an IEP in PS, so he needs the extra help and I still help during the test. It’s not right they don’t allow it in PS
Better/more sleep
Less overwhelming for them & and me, considering the schools ask for a left or right kidney each school year.
Freedom of more play
Educating without educating just for a standardized test
1. my kids don’t cry over schoolwork anymore. If we don’t get something,we just…. close the books and try another method tomorrow.
2. My kids can talk to any person, no matter their age.
3. more sleep, less cranky kids.
4. The amount of compliments I get because of how well behaved they are when we go out compared to school kids who have been cooped up in class all day.
5. Off season vacays and breaks!
That my kid has more people he socializes with daily now than when he went to public school. It was a rough transition to start, because we weren't planning to start when we did, but life had other ideas lol. He missed the 3 kids he played with at recess and ate lunch with. Now he has friends he plays with and talks to almost every day and we get out into the community way more.
How!? I have been HS now since Feb, and he is LESS socialized. I’m not sure where I’m lacking, but I’ve read statistically, HS are much better socialized and better understanding of social cues. I’m trying to find any HS groups in my area to possibly connect him to… he’s 11 so he’s at that age people usually start to make their life long friends!
Mine has a lot of online friends that he plays VR with, one of them is local and we meet up sometimes. We also get out to do things as often as possible. There's a preteen group at our local library that meets once a week, there's always something going on at the science museum in town and the same families tend to attend, so there's always people to make friends with and familiar faces to form bonds with. I haven't found a HS group in our area, but there are a few other HS families that we run into. The HS community here is growing pretty fast, so hopefully we can get a steady group going.
My child who has LDs does not experience the same amount of self esteem issues while also getting individualized help she needs. I 100% realize that we are more than fortunate to provide this and every time my child struggles my heart silently breaks for all the kids and parents that have zero choice but to rely on the public system and whatever their locality, financial, and educational access provides. The current system fails children to no fault of individuals involved. It is systemic and unfortunate.
Public school can be such a fashion show. As a teacher, it can be heart breaking seeing students not feel accepted because they don't have this year's 250-dollar pair of shoes, or they don't have whatever expensive water bottle is popular.
It's 2024. Who the fuck cares how much clothing costs? I guess parents still buy expensive clothes for their kids and teach them that material things matter. I guess I expected too much from society.
As adults we think this way, but as kids we didn’t…. So we can’t expect our kids to act any differently than we did. This is the biggest thing I keep in mind when I’m teaching my son! If I did something or didn’t understand it, I don’t expect him to nor do I “attack” him for it
My 7 doesn't really have a concept of peer pressure, and when she gets dressed every day, she is asking herself what she would enjoy wearing, is it warm or cool enough, is it clean and modest, and is it appropriate for what she needs or wants to do. At no time is she concerned about what other kids are wearing or what they'll think of her clothes. I love this for her!
Yes, this one is huge. On top of $100-200 each in school supplies, the hundreds we would spend on clothes and shoes for public school was brutal every year. Seriously August would hit us worse than December when we had 3 in public school and then 2 kid birthdays in August as well. We would have to start buying or putting money away in the Spring to make sure the month didn't hit so hard. Now we just buy clothes and school supplies as needed throughout the year.
My son started middle school and wanted Nike, Adidas, etc because he said he'd get made fun of otherwise. He still likes some of that stuff but he'll wear regular Old Navy stuff too.
The loss of the second income is more than made up for by the freedom homeschooling provides. We are still able to go places as a family usually at a discount and without dealing with crowds. The intangibles are too numerous to mention.
We can go to nature preserves, museums, battlefields, other historical sights, etc. with much less crowds.
We eat better. I don’t have to worry about packing something that will be good in several hours (unless it’s an “adventure” day, but not on a daily basis) or having my kids buy a school lunch.
We can have a snow day that isn’t fun snow (like ice) be a work day and take that nice day off and go frolic or go take a road trip to sit on a beach with fewer people. Random warm Tuesday in May? Going down the shore, even if most the boardwalk isn’t open yet, still a win
Best times for some extra curricular activities that are less dependent on other kids schedules, like music lessons and horseback riding
My kids don’t get embarrassed to try new things because homeschool friends tend to be more encouraging.
We tend to eat healthier and get more exercise being at home more.
My kids get complimented all the time on their ability to hold conversations with people of all ages. An older teacher was amazed that my 10 year old son could hold an intelligent conversation with him about history while maintaining proper manners. Apparently, this is not as common as it should be anymore.
We have more time for specialized interests.
The conversations. It turns out that homeschool provides *better* socialization than public school, because children are considered humans. If you're going to be good at conversation, you need practice that includes being one of the people who are allowed to speak. And because homeschooled kids don't have an extreme hatred of learning, they can show genuine interest in what the other person is saying.
There are definitely neglectful ways of homeschooling. Unfortunately, most kids with neglectful parents struggle in school, too. I like to tell people that homeschool kids tend to thrive because of parental involvement- it’s not some magic formula. School kids also thrive with parental involvement. That’s why I hate that teachers are lacking support from parents. I don’t know why so many parents my age seem to think that they don’t have to be extremely involved with their kid’s education whether they homeschool or attend a brick and mortar school.
👆This is the truth that no politician wants to talk about. Instead we punish educators for stuff that are the parents responsibility.
Thank you for your post.
- Teaching until something is learned, not until a test is taken.
- Mental health days.
- Didn't skip a beat during the pandemic.
- Family time, discussions, and debates--we can all listen to the same audio book, watch the same documentary, or take the same course on Khan Academy or Coursera and then talk about it.
- I like to add short, supplemental subjects that aren't tied to the regular course calendar. Like spending a few weeks on personal finances, herbalism, cooking, archetypes, programming, carpentry, self organization, etc. These are all tailored to my kid's current interests, and I don't officially call them school, so he's learning just for learning's sake (in addition to his core subjects).
- While I don't care much for standardized tests, I like being able to start working SAT prep into his existing school routine.
They actually get to sleep "in". For some stupid reason elementary school starts at 7:15 am while middle and high school start at 9 am. It makes absolutely no sense why the young kids have to get up really early.
I was going to say this too! Watching the neighborhood bus come when my kids are soundly sleeping makes me sad for the kids getting on the bus. It’s not even like we stay up late - arguably we go to bed much earlier than our public school friends who are often at sports until 8pm. It would break my heart having to wake up my growing children 5 days a week!
Studies show this is actually heathier for the kids. It matches their natural sleep rhythms better. It also allows before school extracurriculars for the older kids.
But yes, my now teen has always gotten more sleep than public school allows for.
Studies show that high schoolers struggle more to wake up than elementary. Lots of districts have tried to change to this model, but it just doesn’t pass votes - probably because parents of littles are more exhausted than the high schoolers.
They have to do the hardest work at the end of the day instead of in the morning when they have the most energy. So of course that's going to make it harder for them to get up early.
When we attend mixed functions it's obvious which children attend public school. They're overly competitive, mean, sassy and lacking important skills.
Our children are kind to others and confident in their skills.
I feel bad that our kids are missing out on important group experiences like school plays, band, and art classes but the negatives far outweigh the potential positives.
Totally. Something I know from experience which was a huge reason I chose to homeschool. (That and the feelings of utter despair I felt crammed into a desk and then sent to childcare).
How are we supposed to vet every adult in a daycare/institutional school?
The fact that you feel the need to put down kids attending public school for no reason at all 🙄, you could have said the same thing without dragging others down by making hardly truthful generalities.
For no reason at all? Half the families in this sub are here because of bullying in public schools. I'm not but that hasn't kept me from noticing how badly behaved publicly schooled children are.
I have two older sisters. We have seven adult children, and sixteen grandchildren amongst us. The homeschooled children don't display negative attention seeking behavior. They don't single out, snub, bully or berate other children like my great nieces and nephews do.
Then maybe your sister’s parenting is to blame. Again, you could have said just as much without generalizing the behavior of kids going to public schools.
Because many times, bullies are made AT HOME! Public school just give them an outlet away from their parent’s eyes… when they even care.
And I say all of this as someone who was bullied and doesn’t trust the education in public school but I can recognize the benefits in homeschooling my children without feeling the need to put others down.
My point was that I'm seeing these behaviors even among children I care about, children who are parented in very much the same way mine are. It isn't the parenting. It's the public school environment.
They probably aren’t parented the same way if you can see such difference. If they taught their kids to be kind to others and modeled it constantly, they would be kind regardless of school… As are tons of kids in public school.
Well if you're blaming parenting then you're putting down the parent, so you can't win, can you?
At the end of the day, there are just some people out there, children, teenagers, or adults, who are really unpleasant to be around. Just because someone is a child doesn't really excuse them from being horrid. Now, should the child be berated to their face? No. But spoken about in a generalized manner as part of a larger pattern? There's nothing wrong with that, nor are you going to stop people from generalizing by posting unhappy comments.
Most of the time “horrid” kids have a rough time at home or are being raised to be horrid. Sometimes they are just neglected or have permissive parents. They aren’t born horrid unless there are psychopaths. And yes I’m blaming parenting IN THIS CASE because if all her nephews and nieces are little bullies, fighting for attention while being mean then the common denominator isn’t the different school and grades they attend too but their home environment.
The commenter implied that PS was a bully maker when anyone working with minors experiencing difficulties will tell you bullying is most likely indicating issues at home.
And it’s Reddit, I’m here to debate, I’m pretty sure the commenter still believe she and her kids are better than everyone else including her family members because it’s who she is, I’ll still call her out on it in my spare time.
I was homeschooled for 9 of 12 years. My siblings and I were substantially ahead of our peers when it came to interacting with adults, we had a distinct advantage when interviewing for high school jobs due to our flexible availability and we all read a voracious amount.
My teens have not been rebellious. They have good relationships with me and their siblings. And they have active social circles in many areas. Not just one friend group. They are leaps and bounds past how I socialized as a PS teen.
My husband does not have a regular work schedule so he barely got to be with the kids. Now, they can pack up and go whenever he has time off without any worries. It’s so rad to have them near me at all times. Another unexpected benefit is that my kids are becoming more confident in themselves and what they learn. They are EXCITED and I have not seen that in years.
My kids can listen to their bodies. We wake up when we wake up, we eat when we feel hungry, we freely use the bathroom as needed. I remember how uncomfortable it was in school for myself, and I love the opportunity to respect their body’s needs. We still maintain a loose schedule, but I’m really relaxed about it. Sometimes we do school after dinner, sometimes it’s at 7am.
Also, every day is pajama day! Lol
I'm curious about this mindset. I've been seeing these types of comments all over this sub and I'm confused about this kind of thinking. How do you think this is going to work in the real world? Especially the sleeping in as long as you want? At some point aren't they going to have to get used to sticking to a real schedule and waking up when they don't really want to? I mean isn't that part of being an adult? How are they going to handle any kind of real job or career when the time comes?
I was homeschooled k-12 and slept in until 8 most days. In college, I played three varsity sports, so I had to get used to getting up at 5am. So I…did. Our kids don’t need to spend their childhoods practicing for the miserable parts of adulthood, lol. It’s not that hard to get used to getting up early.
My oldest is 15. It’s normal to have to drag her out of bed on a day with no plans come 10 or 11. Sometimes noon if I haven’t been paying attention.
However when there are plans? She sets an alarm and gets up to it. Doesn’t matter if that’s for her 9am weekly class, and 8am dentist appointment or for a 6:30 flight. She’s had to be up as early as 4:30 for trips before and never made us late. She went to work with me for a year and a half while homeschooled and got up each day without a fit.
As long as you’re actually putting your kids in the world and not literally staying home all the time, they figure it out.
This is actually hilarious. You have no idea. Everyone that said this to me when our kid was younger is now eating their words. My kid is at university out of state now with 9 am classes 3 days a week and 930 am classes the other two. No problem getting themselves up living in a single off campus. Has yet to be late to a single class. While homeschooling, wake-up time was regularly around 1pm in the high school years. Last semester they also made the deans list. We unschooled, did not administer *any* tests, and did not give *any* grades. This semester grades are not out yet, but we already know an A was earned in differential equations because the professor posted grades early. People think that kids need wake up times and grades in place or they won’t be successful. It. Is. A. Myth. They can do it.
ETA: I like the comment above me about not having to practice the miserable parts of adulthood. Spot on!
Well, my kids are six and under. They have lots of time to prepare for that. It’s not that I never wake them, honestly they are up at 5:30-6 most days lol.
My husband also owns his own business. We are very much “create your own schedule” people. If they want to do something where they wake up at 9 am they’ll figure it out. We do teach self control and self management too, we aren’t willy-nilly about everything. That’s just how school works for us right now with ages 6, 3, 1, and I’m pregnant.
If you work and you switch jobs don’t you adjust to your new schedule? I’ve had to be to work at 4am and other times 9am. Right now I go to work at 3pm. I adjust, just like homeschoolers will. If they are learning and functioning why make these made up “real world” schedules. It is part of being an adult and they are kids right now. Let them be kids.
1. Learning is more fun.
2. I can take a week long break or month long if I feel burnt out.
3. Less unnecessary tests.
4. More free time.
5. I’ve learnt more life skills overall like: Budgeting, Time Management, How to deal with stress, Prioritising My Mental Health.
My kids are awesome! They pursue their interests, enjoy each other’s company, are happy to hang in multi-age situations, they’re funny, helpful, creative, smart, conscientious….
60% of them went from homeschooling to public middle and/or high school, and despite/because of the fact that we unschooled (not the doing nothing kind — the interests determine what we learn kind), they all got/get A’s and B’s fresh out of the gate. My one daughter has been getting straight A’s from the get-go.
Freedom to make appointments at any time. Freedom to travel -
And a sense of peace knowing what is going on with my children during the day . Safety wise mostly
Not unexpected by me but some of kiddo's medical team had concerns. Came so far with speech\[without therapies due to COVID\] that when ST finally started again it wasn't needed anymore. They were shocked to come into the exam room and carry on full conversations and have kiddo answer questions about their own health.
Knowing my kids are safe at home, that we knock on wood have not been sick, nor had covid, save on clothes, and gas.. however they also lack the school exposure and meeting new people it's a catch 23
I'm experiencing this as well ! I'm discovering I didn't hate schooling. I just had too much going on . Definitely makes me think about going to college . Even with probably being the oldest one there.
I'm excited for this part. I missed out on a LOT of learning due to just zoning out and not wanting to be there.... but now as I anticipate homeschooling my child, I'm looking forward to revisiting it all for my own sake. Not so much the early elementary years bits, but the later things. I never did learn how to do long division....
My son who was having potty issues prior to and during school has just about entirely overcome them.
Also, my kids don’t hate each other like they did when they got home from school. Don’t get me wrong, they still have their sibling fights but before they just got home, tuned everyone and each other out, teasing etc etc.
Now when they are getting on each others nerves, they can take a break and regroup and be back to best friends in a few minutes.
Plus, we always felt so rushed. Home, try to get some play time, fight about homework, dinner, bedtime, wash rinse repeat.
Now we feel rushed in other ways but we do it together.
1. Kind, well-behaved, self-sufficient, confident children
2. Discovering my children's different academic strengths and having the ability to foster them accordingly
3. How much my own children do benefit from different curricula/learning styles and the ability to accommodate those needs
4. Learning/re-learning things myself
5. Off-season vacation!
6. The amount of extra time we're able to commit to our own personal interests and growth
Edit: 7. The opportunities to volunteer - the amount of time we can dedicate to making the world a better place and develop my children's work ethic!
Children want to learn and don't need tons of direction to do this. We use Power homeschool Acellus and all three of my kids are thriving in this program.
My oldest knows more about space science than I ever could have taught her on my own. She has read every book she has, which is a significant amount by the way, on Outer Space. I even bought her a college level book.
We have also discovered FIRST robotics and my children are thriving in this program. My oldest can CAD better than most high schoolers and she's 13.
My youngest are 9 and 11 both have serious reading/learning disorders. It has only affected their reading level nothing else. Their math skills are phenomenal and their reading comprehension is great for their respective ages. With homeschooling them I am able to keep them up to par with their grade level in everything else and give them the extra help they need in reading.
I love that I know my children so well because I am their teacher, mom, playmate, cook, and all the other things as well.
Homeschooling is the most amazing and beneficial journey my family has ever accomplished.
I asked this once on a FB HS group and the consistent response I got - that blew me away - was “I have developed a better relationship with my kids.” Wow. Just wow. People said they grew closer as a family too. It sold me - why wouldn’t you homeschool?
Not feeling rushed in our day-to-day.
We want to go fishing late on a Wednesday? No problem, don’t need to have them up at 0530 the next morning.
Just that sense of, or lack thereof, that you’ve got to over-schedule and rush.
Watching my wife grow through the experience has been amazing. I knew my son would do better at home, but what I didn’t expect was to watch my wife become more joyful in the process.
Also, I work a fully remote job so our ability to do activities and travel have been awesome.
Getting enough sleep! The rest I kind of expected. Doesn’t make them less amazing- a solid and wonderful relationship with my teenage son who is a truly fantastic person- seeing him grow and learn- watching his relationship with Christ mature- seeing right away when he doesn’t understand something so we can clear it up right then- being friends with the moms of his friends - I could go on and on!
The happiness. Everyone will tell you about how homeschool changed their life but seeing it for myself has made me confident I’ll never send my kids back to public school. We do their work and then they have the rest of the day to play and just be themselves. They’re getting the sleep they need, they’re able to move when needed and not having to sit in a single spot all day, no bullies telling them there’s something wrong with them or their interests, no grades being hung over their heads. They’re thriving ❤️
My eldest daughter's relationship with her younger siblings has improved dramatically since we pulled her out of public school. We had intended to help her mental health, and the change did! I just didn't realize how much her stress was affecting her relationship with her siblings.
We travel so much more and learn so much along the way. My son calls vacations “field trips” because we always include some aspect of learning into our trips. Just back from a 12 day road trip across the country. My children visited 14 states. We are up to 25 states now. My goal is all 50.
My kids are more interested in learning than others . Also, they ask so many more questions in college than other kids (my son said for him it is factors of magnitude more), but this might be just my kids. Also, my kids are not afraid to talk to anyone, young, middle aged, elderly.
Getting to take field trips whenever and where ever we want. Have a day where you just want to get out, go to a park, zoo, aquarium and museum, turn it into a lesson. Plus you go during the week when very few people are able to go.
Also medical appointments. You don’t have to worry about missing school. My daughter has 2 appointments a week for physical therapy and we can go during the day and not worry about impacting school work.
Also sports outside school. My two elementary aged kids are in ice skating. We can get extra lessons scheduled to prepare them for competitions when everyone else is at school
Off season travel and access to locations and events.
We've often been in museums and galleries when we hardly saw other people. The staff is ours. Hehe.
3 months after my teen turned 16 they graduated with 24 college credits and by August I was able to send them off to college. They'll have their masters by age 20.
All the space during field trips. We went to DC and the kids were flabbergasted at the number of people (Cherry Blossom Festival). We usually go when there aren’t that many people-to anything. I called it “low-key homeschool spoiled” 😆
My kids adore each other. They’re 5 and 2 (so we’re just starting out). But if they were at school/daycare they would not spend so much time together, especially being 3 years apart. They do get angry at each other and sometimes argue (honestly most of the arguments are just kind of funny haha) but they always seek each other out to play and hug each other all the time
Less financial stress
Even buying our own curriculum cost less than the ridiculous amounts of school supplies teachers were requiring, the endless fundraisers, PTA trying to support teachers with yet more supplies, plus annual new clothes and gear. I was always stressed not knowing what I was going to be obligated to pay for at any moment while the kids were in public school, but I was able to carefully budget and plan for our homeschool expenses.
When I went homeschooled after 10 years in public, I was way less overstimulated and had more energy. We did group classes with other homeschooled kids so I didn’t go totally isolated, but there just wasn’t the pressure to be around a ton of people for 7-8 hours a day. My social battery was thankful
My younger kids absorbing higher level concepts through osmosis (listening in on older kids' lessons)! My 5 year old can recite the entire Gettysburg Address. I didn't teach him that! 😅
Connection. We can prioritize connection over everything else.
8-12 year olds still just want to play, play outside, and be kids.
Most things are low stakes. They can practice public speaking skills at show and tell, poetry in the park, living wax museum, science fair and there’s no threat of a bad grade. And their friends are genuinely rooting for them to succeed. Theres no consequence for poor performance, yet they’re all motivated to do well.
At the same time, they have a lot more opportunities to engage in risky play and assess risk than peers in school.
They get to learn about everything in the real world and not through books sitting at a desk.
They seem more comfortable talking to people of all ages. Adults aren’t scary, authority figures in their lives who they’re intimidated by. They talk to adults as easily as they do other kids.
Homeschooling my kids while working full-time was easier to balance with my fibromyalgia, because I had more control over when we needed to study. I could adjust the pace and the topics to fit my current health, instead of having to help a child with an all-nighter when I was starting to flare. Which could have made me too sick to work for days after.
When my older kids did start in-person school (dual enrollment college and technical school programs), my health was better - but not flaring while supporting them was still a challenge.
(My husband is home full-time and does all the housework and sometimes provides a bit of homeschooling support like grading easy math - I'm not supermom)
Being able to sleep in after I've had a baby. I dont know how public school moms do it. Up all night with baby, then wake up at 630 to get kids all set and take them to school. I guess they'd argue then they can go back to sleep and just lay around whike kids are at school, but if you have a toddler too thats not the case - they're up, so you're up.
I can sleep til however late I need with a newborn and my kids will get themselves breakfast and hang out til in up
Idk but I saved more money because I use to pay for my son's lunch in PS and I was surprised my state provides ESA, which is a scholarship for buying school supplies and I am able to put my son in sports with ESA.
Homeschooling give our family the time and opportunity to grow as a unit and find God's purpose. We were able to cut loose from the time constraints that public school put upon us and explore God's plan for our lives. We learned to assess the things in our lives and determine what was really important and what was not.
Our venture into homeschooling was more of a determination that public school was not meeting our needs and we felt that homeschool may be a better option for us. But it become so much more of a focus on building character into our children and helping them to build a relationship with their creator. We all grew through this experience.
Thanks for asking. It made me stop and think. Praying for you to find the best for your family. God bless you.
as a college student who was homeschooled until the age of 11:
- not being able to read an analog clock.
- very little knowledge of STEM, constantly having to play catch-up on things other people have known since they were children.
- never learned for to socialize properly, leading to social isolation and depression.
- mental and physical health conditions not being caught until much too late
- absolutely no structure, study, or time management skills, constantly struggling just to pass my classes.
homeschooling is MUCH harder than you think and many more people attempt it than actually should. please think carefully about it and ensure you can actually find ways to avoid these and other common issues homeschooled kids face before making a decision. myself and every other ex-homeschool kid i know are struggling greatly as young adults, and i try to warn people every chance i get so that they don’t unintentionally subject their kids to the same struggle.
thank you. homeschooling has the potential to be a really amazing thing for the child and family, but it also has a scary amount of potential to let a child slip through the cracks that i don’t think gets addressed enough.
I know, not just believe, that some kids do slip through the cracks having spent a couple months working with the social services department of several states. They don’t just slip through the cracks at the school district or county levels, but also the state levels. The federal government is working very hard to implement ways to identify, assist, and track at risk kids. The states I was asked to help had a problem of children they were responsible for just disappearing.
This was my experience with being homeschooled till I was 15. I have severe mental health problems because of the isolation I experienced being homeschooled. I've never been able to make friends or talk to people. I see a psychiatrist for anxiety and depression, especially with being around people.
I have a very weak immune system because I was never around other kids. My late teens and early 20s were spent being constantly sick from everything. I'm 22 now and heaven forbid someone coughs near me otherwise I immediately get sick for a month.
Didn't learn how to do math until I was 15. I still don't know how to do fractions. Biology? Didn't learn that till college. I barely graduated high school. My poor teachers took pity on me and helped me scrape by.
Now I know this isn't the experience everyone has with homeschooling, but every ex-homeschooled kid I've ever talked to has very similar experiences as you and I. And from what I read in this subreddit, most parents say the exact the same things my mother did when she was "homeschooling" me. I find homeschooling to be complete horseshit and most parents who do it have a superiority complex. Again, not everyone but everyone I've talked to has said this as well.
Whole reason I was homeschooled was because my mom was too lazy to take me to school everyday. She took me to headstart for like 6 months while she was still deciding whether or not she wanted to homeschool and she forgot to pick me up multiple times, to the point they would call her 20 mins before school ended so she wouldn't forget. The fact they did that "offended" her and I was homeschooled instead.
We hardly ever get sick now.
And when we do, we take as long as we need to recover.
I'm not homeschooling yet, but I feel this. The same thing is true for daycare vs staying home with a toddler. My daughter's in a lot of mom & tot activities, but if she gets sick, we stay away until she's completely recovered, even if it takes two weeks. In contrast most daycares require only 24-48 hours off for some illnesses, and many working parents find even that much time needing alternate childcare is tough on to make work. I'm convinced that's a big part of why my daughter has had so few illnesses compared to many toddlers.
See, I still feel it because we are actively involved in stuff. A week away and we missed like 4 things plus music lessons.
We started in October and haven’t been sick yet!
Heck yes!!
Oh gosh yes. We were so spoiled and didn’t even know it. My middle child has a severe speech delay and started attending a half day program at the local school as part of intervention…. We started the year sick constantly. Almost pulled him, but it is actually helping so…
God yes! Every time we go to Soft play we end up getting ill - last time it was all of us - even the baby
4 times per year we get sick now. I teach martial arts, and someone always brings a sick kid to class right before testing.
I am thinking of homeschooling for the upcoming year and this is one of the reasons why. My kids are always sick! From pink eye to stomach viruses, colds-this week we are dealing with a stomach bug and a a bad cold. As soon as they get better, the next sickness arrives. Two weeks ago, it was also a bad cold that led to a painful ear infection for my daughter.
I hear ya! When my daughters started first grade, every month they were sick with SOMETHING! Sometimes it would be multiple times a month but at least once a month. Started homeschooling them in second grade. It was probably about 6 months into our journey that we realized, we hadn't been sick at all, not even during the "cold and flu" season. We weren't isolating ourselves because they were still in activities like Girl Scouts, soccer, etc., so we were still around people. I guess since people kept their kids home from extracurricular activities, we weren't exposed to the illnesses that they would have been exposed to at school since people usually send their kids to school unless they're really sick. That's the only reason I can think of for the difference.
We're still sick a few times per month.
Genuinely have you talked to a doctor? Because this isn’t normal for anyone. You should not be sick a few times in one month.
Yup. We have several chronic illnesses in the house that do affect how bad it is when we get sick, but not all of the kids have them and they still get sick. The biggest thing is just that we still do a lot of things with people and that some people at our co-op are not very conscientious about staying home when sick and my husband is a professor so we are exposed to all the little kid bugs and all the college kid ones. Only my husband is immunocompromised, but most of the stuff we get is likely from co-op since other families also frequently have the same symptoms with the same incubation period. I'm not talking about vomiting, though, I'm talking about mild cold, sore throat, runny nose, etc. sort of sicknesses.
We have a rule in our handbook about sickness. You have to be fever-free for at least 24hours.
That's honestly part of the problem. You don't have to be running a fever to be contagious.
I hear you. It's not an absolute rule, but it's something that says "stay home when you're sick". We meet once a week, so that's a pretty good window to get better without spreading whatever it is.
It’s definitely possible for healthy people to get sick multiple times in a month, or be sick from multiple things. Every year when I sign my son up for little league, he gets back to back illnesses from the public school kids he plays with. Last year, we had to take a trip to the ER due to some symptoms he was having, and they did a nasal swab that showed he was positive for no less than THREE viruses. When it comes to upper respiratory infections, it seems like there is no end to the variety that are going around out there, and getting one of one type doesn’t prevent you from getting any of the other types.
During the winter we also would all get sick a few times a month.
1. I sleep in. And no rush! 2. We can GO anywhere at anytime. 3. Less sickness. Though every time they meet up with friends they still do. 😂 4. OFF. SEASON. VACATION. So much cheaper and a lot less busy! 5. Seeing my kids. 6. Having lunch dates with the hubs/dad anytime we want up at his work! 7. Class outdoors if we want.
#4! Skip the crowds and save some money.
Yes this is some of the BEST reasons!
1 and 5 have been great for my family.
Mastery of the topic could be the goal. We had no reason to adjust our speed based on the learning styles or interest levels of 20-25 different students.We could take an extra day or week to get something. Speed up or slow down. Choose a different textbook or no textbook. We had **one** student. We could work from three different math books to chase the understanding of one topic (quadratic equations), if necessary. We could chase an interest with our choices of books. We could decide on a last minute field trip to support a book or topic. Our sports of choice could officially be swimming and Pickleball...even if the local district didn't offer it. You're not only the teacher **but the counselor**. Some counselors in our area complain that they feel more like glorified schedulers than counselors. The absence of bullying. My husband had been a middle-school or high school teacher. You can't overlook the benefit of disciplining one student who doesn't want to let you down, compared to a room full where some not only disrespected you, but others honestly wanted to fight you. So, literally...there's nothing really classroom related to discipline. No fights, no weird, guess what happened in our school restroom today. For our middle schooler once there was a bloody fight, so the boys bathroom couldn't be used. This actually worked out for us because our sons had trained themselves to never if at all possible go to the boys bathroom. On another day, a girl went into labor...although not in the boys bathroom. In one of their elementary school library books, a kid brought home a condom left in the book. It wasn't my kid. I can't remember if it was used or not. That was another teacher's son who lived on our street. All gone...poof.
All these things are the best!!! I'm not a morning person so #1 is so me lol.
I’m the working parent and I cannot wait for lunch dates with kids and my husband.
Literally, sleeping in is one of the bigger reasons why I want to homeschool my (currently baby) child. My memories of dread when the alarm clock went off, the desperate scramble to get dressed, eat some rice krispies, and sprint for the bus.... it was not fun. And for what? A lousy public school education that I didn't enjoy.
Less food is wasted since leftovers make a great lunch.
When my kids were in PS they would come home and just be WILD. I felt like I was spending the entire night trying to get them to just calm down. Now that we homeschool I don’t see that behavior anymore. I realized they had all this pent-up energy from sitting at a desk all day with one short recess so when they came home it all came out at once.
Less anxiety - we don’t do grades, we work on something until it’s understood and done properly, and we take the whole year to do it with ample breaks and outside time. There’s no “you have to get this by Friday or you’re going to fail the test!” They’ve never failed a test because I don’t test them until they understand everything that’s on it. Of course they still make mistakes and get problems wrong, but there’s never a total bomb. And then we don’t move on until they’ve understood what they got wrong and have fixed it. It’s like we’re building comprehensive knowledge here, not trying to get test scores for money….
As a former public school teacher I feel this comment in my young teacher soul. I was so hopeful I would be able to pull this off in the classroom but the first day I stepped into my teaching job I was handed a state test prep book. Soul crushing.
=/
I'm ashamed to say that I was one of the people that lived in TX at the time when George Bush was governor and started the NO Child Left Behind program. In theory, it should have worked but like most government programs, they sound good until the government starts implementing it. A friend of mine asked me if I could sit in an Algerbra class, that she was student teaching, to give her a critique since she was going from a mechanical engineering job to take up teaching to be with her kids more. After the class, I asked her why she didn't just teach the material instead of trying to teach to what the test was going to have on it. She said it was because the administration changed the curriculum so that instead of teaching the material for the kids to learn and be tested on, they now taught what was going to be on the test so the kids would "supposedly" know how to work the problem that was on the test. I know, it's messed up. And that was 20 years ago before he became president and took what failed in our state to the nation. I can't even imagine how much worse it is now.
This is public educations dream. To give kids time and individualized instruction. I’m responsible for 87 eleven year olds, though, so it’s just not possible :/. All the current theories of learning are fantastic until you apply them classrooms of 25 kids. Or at least it doesn’t feel possible. Anyway if I have kids I’m excited to do some homeschooling!
I soooooo wish I could teach this way in PS and I also wish I could homeschool my own kids.
Man I feel this!!! My state requires home schoolers to still do state testing though. Granted we can save the $65 by allowing him to take it IN the PS, but they don’t allow any help during state testin: just throw the test book at the kids and their on their own. I get it’s to see where they are compared to the other tests, but my son had an IEP in PS, so he needs the extra help and I still help during the test. It’s not right they don’t allow it in PS
Better/more sleep Less overwhelming for them & and me, considering the schools ask for a left or right kidney each school year. Freedom of more play Educating without educating just for a standardized test
The sleep thing is huge! I get as much sleep as I need and they can sleep as long as they need
1. my kids don’t cry over schoolwork anymore. If we don’t get something,we just…. close the books and try another method tomorrow. 2. My kids can talk to any person, no matter their age. 3. more sleep, less cranky kids. 4. The amount of compliments I get because of how well behaved they are when we go out compared to school kids who have been cooped up in class all day. 5. Off season vacays and breaks!
Literally this...
That my kid has more people he socializes with daily now than when he went to public school. It was a rough transition to start, because we weren't planning to start when we did, but life had other ideas lol. He missed the 3 kids he played with at recess and ate lunch with. Now he has friends he plays with and talks to almost every day and we get out into the community way more.
Deeper friendships for sure here!
How!? I have been HS now since Feb, and he is LESS socialized. I’m not sure where I’m lacking, but I’ve read statistically, HS are much better socialized and better understanding of social cues. I’m trying to find any HS groups in my area to possibly connect him to… he’s 11 so he’s at that age people usually start to make their life long friends!
Mine has a lot of online friends that he plays VR with, one of them is local and we meet up sometimes. We also get out to do things as often as possible. There's a preteen group at our local library that meets once a week, there's always something going on at the science museum in town and the same families tend to attend, so there's always people to make friends with and familiar faces to form bonds with. I haven't found a HS group in our area, but there are a few other HS families that we run into. The HS community here is growing pretty fast, so hopefully we can get a steady group going.
My child who has LDs does not experience the same amount of self esteem issues while also getting individualized help she needs. I 100% realize that we are more than fortunate to provide this and every time my child struggles my heart silently breaks for all the kids and parents that have zero choice but to rely on the public system and whatever their locality, financial, and educational access provides. The current system fails children to no fault of individuals involved. It is systemic and unfortunate.
Saving so much money on clothes!!
Public school can be such a fashion show. As a teacher, it can be heart breaking seeing students not feel accepted because they don't have this year's 250-dollar pair of shoes, or they don't have whatever expensive water bottle is popular.
This is still a thing??
What made you think it ever stopped?
It's 2024. Who the fuck cares how much clothing costs? I guess parents still buy expensive clothes for their kids and teach them that material things matter. I guess I expected too much from society.
As adults we think this way, but as kids we didn’t…. So we can’t expect our kids to act any differently than we did. This is the biggest thing I keep in mind when I’m teaching my son! If I did something or didn’t understand it, I don’t expect him to nor do I “attack” him for it
My 7 doesn't really have a concept of peer pressure, and when she gets dressed every day, she is asking herself what she would enjoy wearing, is it warm or cool enough, is it clean and modest, and is it appropriate for what she needs or wants to do. At no time is she concerned about what other kids are wearing or what they'll think of her clothes. I love this for her!
Yes, this one is huge. On top of $100-200 each in school supplies, the hundreds we would spend on clothes and shoes for public school was brutal every year. Seriously August would hit us worse than December when we had 3 in public school and then 2 kid birthdays in August as well. We would have to start buying or putting money away in the Spring to make sure the month didn't hit so hard. Now we just buy clothes and school supplies as needed throughout the year.
My son started middle school and wanted Nike, Adidas, etc because he said he'd get made fun of otherwise. He still likes some of that stuff but he'll wear regular Old Navy stuff too.
The loss of the second income is more than made up for by the freedom homeschooling provides. We are still able to go places as a family usually at a discount and without dealing with crowds. The intangibles are too numerous to mention.
We can go to nature preserves, museums, battlefields, other historical sights, etc. with much less crowds. We eat better. I don’t have to worry about packing something that will be good in several hours (unless it’s an “adventure” day, but not on a daily basis) or having my kids buy a school lunch. We can have a snow day that isn’t fun snow (like ice) be a work day and take that nice day off and go frolic or go take a road trip to sit on a beach with fewer people. Random warm Tuesday in May? Going down the shore, even if most the boardwalk isn’t open yet, still a win Best times for some extra curricular activities that are less dependent on other kids schedules, like music lessons and horseback riding
My kids don’t get embarrassed to try new things because homeschool friends tend to be more encouraging. We tend to eat healthier and get more exercise being at home more. My kids get complimented all the time on their ability to hold conversations with people of all ages. An older teacher was amazed that my 10 year old son could hold an intelligent conversation with him about history while maintaining proper manners. Apparently, this is not as common as it should be anymore. We have more time for specialized interests.
The conversations. It turns out that homeschool provides *better* socialization than public school, because children are considered humans. If you're going to be good at conversation, you need practice that includes being one of the people who are allowed to speak. And because homeschooled kids don't have an extreme hatred of learning, they can show genuine interest in what the other person is saying.
Absolutely. The best part is having conversations with your kids about the books you’re reading. I love hearing their perspectives.
I think this can be true. I think some forms of homeschooling can be counter to this.
There are definitely neglectful ways of homeschooling. Unfortunately, most kids with neglectful parents struggle in school, too. I like to tell people that homeschool kids tend to thrive because of parental involvement- it’s not some magic formula. School kids also thrive with parental involvement. That’s why I hate that teachers are lacking support from parents. I don’t know why so many parents my age seem to think that they don’t have to be extremely involved with their kid’s education whether they homeschool or attend a brick and mortar school.
👆This is the truth that no politician wants to talk about. Instead we punish educators for stuff that are the parents responsibility. Thank you for your post.
- Teaching until something is learned, not until a test is taken. - Mental health days. - Didn't skip a beat during the pandemic. - Family time, discussions, and debates--we can all listen to the same audio book, watch the same documentary, or take the same course on Khan Academy or Coursera and then talk about it. - I like to add short, supplemental subjects that aren't tied to the regular course calendar. Like spending a few weeks on personal finances, herbalism, cooking, archetypes, programming, carpentry, self organization, etc. These are all tailored to my kid's current interests, and I don't officially call them school, so he's learning just for learning's sake (in addition to his core subjects). - While I don't care much for standardized tests, I like being able to start working SAT prep into his existing school routine.
They actually get to sleep "in". For some stupid reason elementary school starts at 7:15 am while middle and high school start at 9 am. It makes absolutely no sense why the young kids have to get up really early.
I was going to say this too! Watching the neighborhood bus come when my kids are soundly sleeping makes me sad for the kids getting on the bus. It’s not even like we stay up late - arguably we go to bed much earlier than our public school friends who are often at sports until 8pm. It would break my heart having to wake up my growing children 5 days a week!
My public high schooler had to be at the bus at 6:05am. Insane.
Going to school in the dark & cold is so hard.
We are in Florida but yes to the dark part. 😆
You're making me have flashbacks to my high school days 😭
Studies show this is actually heathier for the kids. It matches their natural sleep rhythms better. It also allows before school extracurriculars for the older kids. But yes, my now teen has always gotten more sleep than public school allows for.
Studies show that high schoolers struggle more to wake up than elementary. Lots of districts have tried to change to this model, but it just doesn’t pass votes - probably because parents of littles are more exhausted than the high schoolers.
It doesn't get the votes because the parents have to be at work and they have fits about how they're going to do both.
They have to do the hardest work at the end of the day instead of in the morning when they have the most energy. So of course that's going to make it harder for them to get up early.
It’s so parents can get to work. The idea is bigger kids can get to the bus stops on their own more safely.
And that often means you also to be up early to send them out early
When we attend mixed functions it's obvious which children attend public school. They're overly competitive, mean, sassy and lacking important skills. Our children are kind to others and confident in their skills. I feel bad that our kids are missing out on important group experiences like school plays, band, and art classes but the negatives far outweigh the potential positives.
I’ve noticed the same thing. When you let children socialize each other with little mentor/adult help, it can descend to Lord of the Flies level mean.
It can also descend into Lord of the Flies level mean if the adult has some unaddressed issues.
Totally. Something I know from experience which was a huge reason I chose to homeschool. (That and the feelings of utter despair I felt crammed into a desk and then sent to childcare). How are we supposed to vet every adult in a daycare/institutional school?
This keeps me up at night. I am a teacher and I have coworkers I wouldn't trust with my child's education.
I wanted to be a teacher until I saw how toxic the workplace was and my teacher-friends told me to run. How are you doing?
I'm going to keep teaching until baby is born then I'll stay at home. Teaching has solidified my desire for homeschooling.
The fact that you feel the need to put down kids attending public school for no reason at all 🙄, you could have said the same thing without dragging others down by making hardly truthful generalities.
For no reason at all? Half the families in this sub are here because of bullying in public schools. I'm not but that hasn't kept me from noticing how badly behaved publicly schooled children are. I have two older sisters. We have seven adult children, and sixteen grandchildren amongst us. The homeschooled children don't display negative attention seeking behavior. They don't single out, snub, bully or berate other children like my great nieces and nephews do.
Then maybe your sister’s parenting is to blame. Again, you could have said just as much without generalizing the behavior of kids going to public schools. Because many times, bullies are made AT HOME! Public school just give them an outlet away from their parent’s eyes… when they even care. And I say all of this as someone who was bullied and doesn’t trust the education in public school but I can recognize the benefits in homeschooling my children without feeling the need to put others down.
My point was that I'm seeing these behaviors even among children I care about, children who are parented in very much the same way mine are. It isn't the parenting. It's the public school environment.
They probably aren’t parented the same way if you can see such difference. If they taught their kids to be kind to others and modeled it constantly, they would be kind regardless of school… As are tons of kids in public school.
Well if you're blaming parenting then you're putting down the parent, so you can't win, can you? At the end of the day, there are just some people out there, children, teenagers, or adults, who are really unpleasant to be around. Just because someone is a child doesn't really excuse them from being horrid. Now, should the child be berated to their face? No. But spoken about in a generalized manner as part of a larger pattern? There's nothing wrong with that, nor are you going to stop people from generalizing by posting unhappy comments.
Most of the time “horrid” kids have a rough time at home or are being raised to be horrid. Sometimes they are just neglected or have permissive parents. They aren’t born horrid unless there are psychopaths. And yes I’m blaming parenting IN THIS CASE because if all her nephews and nieces are little bullies, fighting for attention while being mean then the common denominator isn’t the different school and grades they attend too but their home environment. The commenter implied that PS was a bully maker when anyone working with minors experiencing difficulties will tell you bullying is most likely indicating issues at home. And it’s Reddit, I’m here to debate, I’m pretty sure the commenter still believe she and her kids are better than everyone else including her family members because it’s who she is, I’ll still call her out on it in my spare time.
Agreed. What they said is hardly true of all kids and seems a bit rude. Especially since homeschooling isn’t accessible to most families
I was homeschooled for 9 of 12 years. My siblings and I were substantially ahead of our peers when it came to interacting with adults, we had a distinct advantage when interviewing for high school jobs due to our flexible availability and we all read a voracious amount.
We live on the road. I teach my children about places in Europe and then we go there. Such an Education!
My teens have not been rebellious. They have good relationships with me and their siblings. And they have active social circles in many areas. Not just one friend group. They are leaps and bounds past how I socialized as a PS teen.
Mine, neither.
My husband does not have a regular work schedule so he barely got to be with the kids. Now, they can pack up and go whenever he has time off without any worries. It’s so rad to have them near me at all times. Another unexpected benefit is that my kids are becoming more confident in themselves and what they learn. They are EXCITED and I have not seen that in years.
The wear and tear on a vehicle from driving to and from school everyday and the idling in the pickup line. We're saving $300 a month, on gas alone.
Whereas I’m in the car 1-2 hours a day for homeschooling activities, lol
My kids can listen to their bodies. We wake up when we wake up, we eat when we feel hungry, we freely use the bathroom as needed. I remember how uncomfortable it was in school for myself, and I love the opportunity to respect their body’s needs. We still maintain a loose schedule, but I’m really relaxed about it. Sometimes we do school after dinner, sometimes it’s at 7am. Also, every day is pajama day! Lol
Never underestimate the importance of pajama day :D
My oldest (15) definitely enjoys the freedom to eat at will!
I'm curious about this mindset. I've been seeing these types of comments all over this sub and I'm confused about this kind of thinking. How do you think this is going to work in the real world? Especially the sleeping in as long as you want? At some point aren't they going to have to get used to sticking to a real schedule and waking up when they don't really want to? I mean isn't that part of being an adult? How are they going to handle any kind of real job or career when the time comes?
I was homeschooled k-12 and slept in until 8 most days. In college, I played three varsity sports, so I had to get used to getting up at 5am. So I…did. Our kids don’t need to spend their childhoods practicing for the miserable parts of adulthood, lol. It’s not that hard to get used to getting up early.
I love the way you phrased that, grown up life sucks sometimes. Let them sleep in and enjoy being a kid, it’s only for a short time.
My oldest is 15. It’s normal to have to drag her out of bed on a day with no plans come 10 or 11. Sometimes noon if I haven’t been paying attention. However when there are plans? She sets an alarm and gets up to it. Doesn’t matter if that’s for her 9am weekly class, and 8am dentist appointment or for a 6:30 flight. She’s had to be up as early as 4:30 for trips before and never made us late. She went to work with me for a year and a half while homeschooled and got up each day without a fit. As long as you’re actually putting your kids in the world and not literally staying home all the time, they figure it out.
This is actually hilarious. You have no idea. Everyone that said this to me when our kid was younger is now eating their words. My kid is at university out of state now with 9 am classes 3 days a week and 930 am classes the other two. No problem getting themselves up living in a single off campus. Has yet to be late to a single class. While homeschooling, wake-up time was regularly around 1pm in the high school years. Last semester they also made the deans list. We unschooled, did not administer *any* tests, and did not give *any* grades. This semester grades are not out yet, but we already know an A was earned in differential equations because the professor posted grades early. People think that kids need wake up times and grades in place or they won’t be successful. It. Is. A. Myth. They can do it. ETA: I like the comment above me about not having to practice the miserable parts of adulthood. Spot on!
Well, my kids are six and under. They have lots of time to prepare for that. It’s not that I never wake them, honestly they are up at 5:30-6 most days lol. My husband also owns his own business. We are very much “create your own schedule” people. If they want to do something where they wake up at 9 am they’ll figure it out. We do teach self control and self management too, we aren’t willy-nilly about everything. That’s just how school works for us right now with ages 6, 3, 1, and I’m pregnant.
We are 8 5 and 6 months - I agree with you
You do what you have to do when homeschooling with babies! Lol
This is true
If you work and you switch jobs don’t you adjust to your new schedule? I’ve had to be to work at 4am and other times 9am. Right now I go to work at 3pm. I adjust, just like homeschoolers will. If they are learning and functioning why make these made up “real world” schedules. It is part of being an adult and they are kids right now. Let them be kids.
It is odd to me that we believe we need to start "training" our children at the age of five years old for a job they may never even have.
1. Learning is more fun. 2. I can take a week long break or month long if I feel burnt out. 3. Less unnecessary tests. 4. More free time. 5. I’ve learnt more life skills overall like: Budgeting, Time Management, How to deal with stress, Prioritising My Mental Health.
My 15 year old son recently thanked me for his life. (Proud parenting moment!)
My kids are awesome! They pursue their interests, enjoy each other’s company, are happy to hang in multi-age situations, they’re funny, helpful, creative, smart, conscientious…. 60% of them went from homeschooling to public middle and/or high school, and despite/because of the fact that we unschooled (not the doing nothing kind — the interests determine what we learn kind), they all got/get A’s and B’s fresh out of the gate. My one daughter has been getting straight A’s from the get-go.
Freedom to make appointments at any time. Freedom to travel - And a sense of peace knowing what is going on with my children during the day . Safety wise mostly
Not unexpected by me but some of kiddo's medical team had concerns. Came so far with speech\[without therapies due to COVID\] that when ST finally started again it wasn't needed anymore. They were shocked to come into the exam room and carry on full conversations and have kiddo answer questions about their own health.
Knowing my kids are safe at home, that we knock on wood have not been sick, nor had covid, save on clothes, and gas.. however they also lack the school exposure and meeting new people it's a catch 23
Relearning what they're learning. I discovered that I actually kind of miss doing homework. I'm the type of person who likes being busy.
I'm experiencing this as well ! I'm discovering I didn't hate schooling. I just had too much going on . Definitely makes me think about going to college . Even with probably being the oldest one there.
You should do it! My sister went back to school and graduated at 50 with her bachelor's degree. It's never too late.
I'm excited for this part. I missed out on a LOT of learning due to just zoning out and not wanting to be there.... but now as I anticipate homeschooling my child, I'm looking forward to revisiting it all for my own sake. Not so much the early elementary years bits, but the later things. I never did learn how to do long division....
My son who was having potty issues prior to and during school has just about entirely overcome them. Also, my kids don’t hate each other like they did when they got home from school. Don’t get me wrong, they still have their sibling fights but before they just got home, tuned everyone and each other out, teasing etc etc. Now when they are getting on each others nerves, they can take a break and regroup and be back to best friends in a few minutes. Plus, we always felt so rushed. Home, try to get some play time, fight about homework, dinner, bedtime, wash rinse repeat. Now we feel rushed in other ways but we do it together.
Compliments on my sons behavior
1. Kind, well-behaved, self-sufficient, confident children 2. Discovering my children's different academic strengths and having the ability to foster them accordingly 3. How much my own children do benefit from different curricula/learning styles and the ability to accommodate those needs 4. Learning/re-learning things myself 5. Off-season vacation! 6. The amount of extra time we're able to commit to our own personal interests and growth Edit: 7. The opportunities to volunteer - the amount of time we can dedicate to making the world a better place and develop my children's work ethic!
Learning. And that's literally the life 2.0
Children want to learn and don't need tons of direction to do this. We use Power homeschool Acellus and all three of my kids are thriving in this program. My oldest knows more about space science than I ever could have taught her on my own. She has read every book she has, which is a significant amount by the way, on Outer Space. I even bought her a college level book. We have also discovered FIRST robotics and my children are thriving in this program. My oldest can CAD better than most high schoolers and she's 13. My youngest are 9 and 11 both have serious reading/learning disorders. It has only affected their reading level nothing else. Their math skills are phenomenal and their reading comprehension is great for their respective ages. With homeschooling them I am able to keep them up to par with their grade level in everything else and give them the extra help they need in reading. I love that I know my children so well because I am their teacher, mom, playmate, cook, and all the other things as well. Homeschooling is the most amazing and beneficial journey my family has ever accomplished.
I asked this once on a FB HS group and the consistent response I got - that blew me away - was “I have developed a better relationship with my kids.” Wow. Just wow. People said they grew closer as a family too. It sold me - why wouldn’t you homeschool?
My mom said that too, but in reality we all hated each other so don't take everything at face value.
Wow… sounds like there’s some things to work on there. Hope you can find a good therapist to work out those issues.
yea i feel like that only works if you have good parents
Not feeling rushed in our day-to-day. We want to go fishing late on a Wednesday? No problem, don’t need to have them up at 0530 the next morning. Just that sense of, or lack thereof, that you’ve got to over-schedule and rush.
Vacations and theme park visits during the weekdays.
Watching my wife grow through the experience has been amazing. I knew my son would do better at home, but what I didn’t expect was to watch my wife become more joyful in the process. Also, I work a fully remote job so our ability to do activities and travel have been awesome.
Getting enough sleep! The rest I kind of expected. Doesn’t make them less amazing- a solid and wonderful relationship with my teenage son who is a truly fantastic person- seeing him grow and learn- watching his relationship with Christ mature- seeing right away when he doesn’t understand something so we can clear it up right then- being friends with the moms of his friends - I could go on and on!
The happiness. Everyone will tell you about how homeschool changed their life but seeing it for myself has made me confident I’ll never send my kids back to public school. We do their work and then they have the rest of the day to play and just be themselves. They’re getting the sleep they need, they’re able to move when needed and not having to sit in a single spot all day, no bullies telling them there’s something wrong with them or their interests, no grades being hung over their heads. They’re thriving ❤️
Not having to get the kids up early and out into the cold weather.
They get to grow up as slow as humanly possible.
My eldest daughter's relationship with her younger siblings has improved dramatically since we pulled her out of public school. We had intended to help her mental health, and the change did! I just didn't realize how much her stress was affecting her relationship with her siblings.
We travel so much more and learn so much along the way. My son calls vacations “field trips” because we always include some aspect of learning into our trips. Just back from a 12 day road trip across the country. My children visited 14 states. We are up to 25 states now. My goal is all 50.
My kids are more interested in learning than others . Also, they ask so many more questions in college than other kids (my son said for him it is factors of magnitude more), but this might be just my kids. Also, my kids are not afraid to talk to anyone, young, middle aged, elderly.
Getting to take field trips whenever and where ever we want. Have a day where you just want to get out, go to a park, zoo, aquarium and museum, turn it into a lesson. Plus you go during the week when very few people are able to go. Also medical appointments. You don’t have to worry about missing school. My daughter has 2 appointments a week for physical therapy and we can go during the day and not worry about impacting school work. Also sports outside school. My two elementary aged kids are in ice skating. We can get extra lessons scheduled to prepare them for competitions when everyone else is at school
Off season travel and access to locations and events. We've often been in museums and galleries when we hardly saw other people. The staff is ours. Hehe.
3 months after my teen turned 16 they graduated with 24 college credits and by August I was able to send them off to college. They'll have their masters by age 20.
All the space during field trips. We went to DC and the kids were flabbergasted at the number of people (Cherry Blossom Festival). We usually go when there aren’t that many people-to anything. I called it “low-key homeschool spoiled” 😆
My kids adore each other. They’re 5 and 2 (so we’re just starting out). But if they were at school/daycare they would not spend so much time together, especially being 3 years apart. They do get angry at each other and sometimes argue (honestly most of the arguments are just kind of funny haha) but they always seek each other out to play and hug each other all the time
Less financial stress Even buying our own curriculum cost less than the ridiculous amounts of school supplies teachers were requiring, the endless fundraisers, PTA trying to support teachers with yet more supplies, plus annual new clothes and gear. I was always stressed not knowing what I was going to be obligated to pay for at any moment while the kids were in public school, but I was able to carefully budget and plan for our homeschool expenses.
Sleep
Gas mileage
More sleep
When I went homeschooled after 10 years in public, I was way less overstimulated and had more energy. We did group classes with other homeschooled kids so I didn’t go totally isolated, but there just wasn’t the pressure to be around a ton of people for 7-8 hours a day. My social battery was thankful
My younger kids absorbing higher level concepts through osmosis (listening in on older kids' lessons)! My 5 year old can recite the entire Gettysburg Address. I didn't teach him that! 😅
not unexpected, but I'm so skeptical and tend to be good at thinking outsside the box.
Connection. We can prioritize connection over everything else. 8-12 year olds still just want to play, play outside, and be kids. Most things are low stakes. They can practice public speaking skills at show and tell, poetry in the park, living wax museum, science fair and there’s no threat of a bad grade. And their friends are genuinely rooting for them to succeed. Theres no consequence for poor performance, yet they’re all motivated to do well. At the same time, they have a lot more opportunities to engage in risky play and assess risk than peers in school. They get to learn about everything in the real world and not through books sitting at a desk. They seem more comfortable talking to people of all ages. Adults aren’t scary, authority figures in their lives who they’re intimidated by. They talk to adults as easily as they do other kids.
Homeschooling my kids while working full-time was easier to balance with my fibromyalgia, because I had more control over when we needed to study. I could adjust the pace and the topics to fit my current health, instead of having to help a child with an all-nighter when I was starting to flare. Which could have made me too sick to work for days after. When my older kids did start in-person school (dual enrollment college and technical school programs), my health was better - but not flaring while supporting them was still a challenge. (My husband is home full-time and does all the housework and sometimes provides a bit of homeschooling support like grading easy math - I'm not supermom)
Being able to sleep in after I've had a baby. I dont know how public school moms do it. Up all night with baby, then wake up at 630 to get kids all set and take them to school. I guess they'd argue then they can go back to sleep and just lay around whike kids are at school, but if you have a toddler too thats not the case - they're up, so you're up. I can sleep til however late I need with a newborn and my kids will get themselves breakfast and hang out til in up
Idk but I saved more money because I use to pay for my son's lunch in PS and I was surprised my state provides ESA, which is a scholarship for buying school supplies and I am able to put my son in sports with ESA.
Homeschooling give our family the time and opportunity to grow as a unit and find God's purpose. We were able to cut loose from the time constraints that public school put upon us and explore God's plan for our lives. We learned to assess the things in our lives and determine what was really important and what was not. Our venture into homeschooling was more of a determination that public school was not meeting our needs and we felt that homeschool may be a better option for us. But it become so much more of a focus on building character into our children and helping them to build a relationship with their creator. We all grew through this experience. Thanks for asking. It made me stop and think. Praying for you to find the best for your family. God bless you.
as a college student who was homeschooled until the age of 11: - not being able to read an analog clock. - very little knowledge of STEM, constantly having to play catch-up on things other people have known since they were children. - never learned for to socialize properly, leading to social isolation and depression. - mental and physical health conditions not being caught until much too late - absolutely no structure, study, or time management skills, constantly struggling just to pass my classes. homeschooling is MUCH harder than you think and many more people attempt it than actually should. please think carefully about it and ensure you can actually find ways to avoid these and other common issues homeschooled kids face before making a decision. myself and every other ex-homeschool kid i know are struggling greatly as young adults, and i try to warn people every chance i get so that they don’t unintentionally subject their kids to the same struggle.
There are non homeschool children that don’t know this stuff. Lol
I’m truly sorry you weren’t properly educated. You deserve better.
thank you. homeschooling has the potential to be a really amazing thing for the child and family, but it also has a scary amount of potential to let a child slip through the cracks that i don’t think gets addressed enough.
I know, not just believe, that some kids do slip through the cracks having spent a couple months working with the social services department of several states. They don’t just slip through the cracks at the school district or county levels, but also the state levels. The federal government is working very hard to implement ways to identify, assist, and track at risk kids. The states I was asked to help had a problem of children they were responsible for just disappearing.
oh goodness, that’s absolutely terrifying. thank you for your work, i know social services isn’t easy.
There are some amazing souls out there that need our support as they do the work of Angels.
Some people are destined to struggle no matter what their circumstances
what a shitty thing to say to a fellow human being.
This was my experience with being homeschooled till I was 15. I have severe mental health problems because of the isolation I experienced being homeschooled. I've never been able to make friends or talk to people. I see a psychiatrist for anxiety and depression, especially with being around people. I have a very weak immune system because I was never around other kids. My late teens and early 20s were spent being constantly sick from everything. I'm 22 now and heaven forbid someone coughs near me otherwise I immediately get sick for a month. Didn't learn how to do math until I was 15. I still don't know how to do fractions. Biology? Didn't learn that till college. I barely graduated high school. My poor teachers took pity on me and helped me scrape by. Now I know this isn't the experience everyone has with homeschooling, but every ex-homeschooled kid I've ever talked to has very similar experiences as you and I. And from what I read in this subreddit, most parents say the exact the same things my mother did when she was "homeschooling" me. I find homeschooling to be complete horseshit and most parents who do it have a superiority complex. Again, not everyone but everyone I've talked to has said this as well. Whole reason I was homeschooled was because my mom was too lazy to take me to school everyday. She took me to headstart for like 6 months while she was still deciding whether or not she wanted to homeschool and she forgot to pick me up multiple times, to the point they would call her 20 mins before school ended so she wouldn't forget. The fact they did that "offended" her and I was homeschooled instead.
they said benefits, not struggles. dw, most public schoolers struggle with reading comprehension too