re: Did You/Do You Homeschool Your Kids?

[quote]Homeschool kids are socially awkward and unemployable in my experience because they have no people skills.

This is such a lazy and inaccurate take. Have you spent any time around public schooled kids? I would say that there are no more or less “un socialized or weird” kids in the homeschool community. I’ve mentioned before that we homeschooled both of our daughters. They were involved in city choir, dance and theatre. My wife created a homeschool field trip group that traveled all over the state as well as DC and a cruise. Your child’s education is proportional to the effort you put into it. Both are in college and my youngest has only one B in her four years. She will begin law school next year after a prestigious internship in DC this summer.
I would highly recommend it. Teach what you can and take advantage of technology or co-ops to fill in the gaps.

Have seen a range of quality. Some really good outcomes. Others were biding time to work with their hands in the sticks somewhere, because traditional school is too one-sized fits all.

The lasting impression came from:

The Homeschool Mom holding her socially awkward high school Sr son at his graduation like he was not allowed to be
10 feet from her at all times…

And a general pattern of this from home school parents…many socially awkward themselves that appear to carry some unusual fear about letting go of their children or some social scar tissue…

And much desire to control what their kids are exposed to, like living in church 24/7 and keeping bad away from them. At face value, that seems positive. But, paradoxically, all of one without the other is cheating something in the kids ability to navigate real life.

Is negative elements from my observation.

Have seen some thrive academically at college. But the apron strings and social filtering hampers them in other ways.

Proceed with caution. In end, must do what you feel is best for your kids / family.

Cons

I homeschooled my 2 youngest from 4th grade. One went to high school and was valedictorian of his class. He is now a homicide detective.
My other son stayed home through high school. He then went on to serve in the military for 8 years and was in Iraq once and Afghanistan, twice, during the wars. It took its toll on him.
It was the best thing I ever did. I wouldn’t trade anything for the time I had with them. They are both very smart, loving and God fearing men.
I enjoyed it and they say they did too. We found a great group of other homeschoolers and did something together at least twice a week. The boys say they loved not having homework and being done by 2 pm on a home day.
You don’t need to be brilliant, but be consistent and organized. I highly recommend it.

I barely can do 5th grade math at this point so I can’t homeschool

Nah. Every homeschooled kid turned out fricking weird

Current rankings:

Private Christian school that focuses on academics

2a. Homeschool
2b. Public

2a and 2b order depend on your public school offerings/location and your ability to teach/homeschool.

No, we did move them to private school during 2020.

To add to this, I know a LOT of homeschoolers, and they run the gamut. Some do have overbearing parents who want to shelter their kids to an extreme degree. Some are neurodivergent or have health issues and homeschooling is a better option. Some want their children to have either a Christian education or a classical education and a homeschool co-op is much, much less expensive than private school. Some have kids who are extremely talented (some sports, some arts) so homeschooling allows them flexibility to pursue that passion.

So absolutely some homeschoolers we know are socially awkward, but many aren't. The two biggest co-ops near us run basically like a smaller private school. They have field trips, extracurricular activities, prom, and graduation. They parents are also required to teach and put in a lot of time to direct activities which isn't possible for us since we both work full-time.

quote:

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will excell even in a homeschool environment being taught by an amateur teacher.

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Let’s be honest here, overwhelming majority of teachers were not the brightest and that’s why they’re teachers.
I’d take a successful professional or business owner teaching my kids over the standard teacher every time. And it’s not even close

The biggest con against homeschooling is your kids not learning what this is