Did You/Do You Homeschool Your Kids?

A friend of a friend homeschooled his kids and both are trans now

8 and 15

Exactly, I wouldnt do it.

My cousin was homeschooled when he was a kid through 12th grade. Seventeen years later, boom, cancer.

I've known some homeschoolers. I'm sure there will be a lot of discussion of the social aspects so I'll leave that aside and focus on academics. I think you can do fine on the elementary subjects but high school math and science would be daunting for most parents to teach. I had calculus in college but I would struggle to teach it.

Another issue is lack of a safety net. Family member gets sick, somebody gets laid off, all that will impact your school plans.

I feel the majority of the kids that come from long term home schooling are lacking a lot of the social skills necessary to navigate life. Kids need to battle through tough, uncomfortable situations and not run and hide from them.

Yes the vast majority of public schools are a mess, but I much rather choose private schools than home schooling.

Virtual school here.

Daughter 9-12th
Son 4th-10th with 9th grade year in a regular school.

SiL home schooled our two older children through middle school because it fit their social development better. They went/ go to public high school. The third is in elementary and goes to public school.

It was great for the first two because their teacher was their aunt so she was vetted. Their education was customized, it was safer, and it was free except for a small food fee & books.

Not many cons in our situation...

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A friend of a friend homeschooled his kids and both are trans now

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Your friend of a friend is a fig

Home schooling seems really hard and takes a parent with patience and care and knowledge as well as kids who don’t treat their parents differently than they treat other adults.

Anyone who has coached their kid’s sports team knows what I’m talking about.

I’m sure it works out for some, but the kids I know who are around my kids’ ages are all giant assholes.

That probably has more to do with an attitude instilled in them by the parents teaching them than the kids being assholes innately, but nevertheless that’s my anecdote.

Biggest pro is you control their education as much as possible. Biggest con is that is probably very hard, time-consuming, and tiring to do very well on your own.

Biggest "could go either way" is the socialization aspect. For some kids, it's the best and maybe only way for them to thrive. For others, unless there is intentional effort to find other avenues for socialization, it can be detrimental to some aspects of development.

I ran a weekly PE program at our local Y for a group of home school kids around ages 5-14 a few years back. The young kids were mostly like normal young kids, a spectrum of shy, playful, precocious, rowdy, etc. One difference was many didn't have the same ubiquitous media interests as others their age (not as much Disney, Nickelodeon, etc., on their clothes). It was still there, just not as much as you would probably see in a typical elementary school classroom.

As they got older, they tended to diverge more behaviorally and socially from the typical kid their age. Some of them had ASD or other developmental disabilities, though, which was why they weren't in public schools in the first place.

I will also add they were all damn good kids and very fun to work with. I saw some of the naturally kindest behavior among them. Even the "difficult" ones were not mean or rude, just high-spirited and/or learning how to manage that high-stimulation environment.

FACT - homeschoolers have a 0% of graduating as a tranny/fig/furry.