Homeschooling Support Group

I home educate not home school,my son. Neither of us like the word school. I have home educated my son for 6 years and 3 months as he was bullied at school. My son is safe at home and learning at the same time. I do not teach any religious topics to my son. I refuse to teach my son anything about creation when there is no proof. I have taught my son about the big bang theory,which to me makes more sense than a so called man sitting up in the sky who is supposed to have made everything. If there was a so called god,there would not be the suffering there is today.

I homeschooled for many of these reasons. But the main reason I did is because I actually was told by the grade school principal at my daughter's school when she was in 2nd grade in about 1986, that while my daughter was in school she was a "ward of the state" YEP! he actually had the nerve to use those words! And he went on to say that she was not under my jurisdiction but the state's as long as she was on school property. That I had no authority over her there.

She was out of that school so fast that it made their head swim! And it was all over her taking milk to drink (she was lactose intolerant and I always sent juice).

Not only was this principal way out of line, but his standing was totally illegal and unconstitutional - STILL IS. But his supervisor still supported his stand.

It is only worse now, thirty years later. I am now raising my gs who is 3, and I will do whatever I can to keep him out of the school system until he is at least in high school.

But having homeschooled three, I have proven that I can give my children a quality education and that they can learn to be individual thinkers (that one has come back at me a few times...lol), and self-motivated, productive members of society who aren't afraid to speak out about their beliefs - whatever those beliefs are! Believe me, they don't only follow in my footsteps... :P

I guess that more than sums it up. Maybe I should write a book?!?

Panadeine

Great post! That brings up a point I mentioned in a different forum on a homeschooling thread!

I love that you don't use school but educate!

I told another lady that homeschooling is all about LEARNING, not TEACHING. In public schools the emphasis is all on TEACHING, not on learning. Actually, I feel the same is true in most pvt schools. It is one of the downfalls of a school system. That's one reason the small schools were so much better, although these days the gov't has pretty much made them illegal.

I would like anyone who is considering home educating their child or children to know that it is the most wonderful journey of a young person's life. It has enabled my son and I to develop a wonderful,close and caring bond for each other. I have home educated my son Thomas for 6 years and 3 months after attending 3 private and 3 public schools. He suffers from Autism Spectrum Disorder and was continually bullied at school and the amount of help he was receiving with his learning problems were very few and far between. Home education has given my son one on one attention which he would otherwise not receive in a regular classroom. He is able to work at his own level and if a problem arises,both of us are able to spend extra time trying to sort the problem out rather than just rushing through and hoping that he gets the hang of it. I have watched my son grow into a delightful,well mannered ,happy and loving young man. I have seen the progress he has made. I have been able to help him overcome difficulties by giving him extra assistance. He has an amazing world of resources around him on a daily basis. We do not like the words home school and instead use home education or home learning. I believe my son will be a much better person for not being exposed to the regular problems that schools can place upon our kids and some of these are peer pressure,drugs,smoking,homework,rowdiness,rudeness,gangs and these are not all. My only regret is not beginning our wonderful journey at an earlier time.

I'm 15, 10th grade, and I chose to go into homeschooling for my high school years. I was bullied at school, and it sucked. I hated going to school and it wasn't a great experience so that's why I made the decision. However, I don't think that it is the best choice for younger kids. Of course it does depend on the situation, but at least through elementary school, and even jr. high, I think kids should go to school. This way, they learn the social skills that come with going to school (and are applicable to life outside school), make friends, and learn how to learn, as well as learn how to deal because your parents aren't always going to be there to defend you and help you and support you. That's not to say that they can't learn those things in homeschooling though. I teach myself and I'm taking two college classes this year. I'm going to graduate at the end of 11th grade. But being homeschooled has affected me in a lot of negative ways. My friends have basically all deserted me and I don't have any support in my life now, which I desperately need at the moment. In school, at least the public ones I attended, they did teach the creation of the world and all that as theories. There's good and bad anywhere you go, whether it's homeschooling, public, or private school. I had some really great teachers at school and I have a lot of really great memories and those make up for all the bad memories. There is a lot of good that can come from going to public schools, although it does depend on the area you're in. It taught me a lot about how to grow up and it made me become a lot more mature. Part of me does regret not going to high school, but I'm not giving up homeschooling because I want to graduate early and it's something I cannot do at the public school here. I was able to excel, we had GATE (gifted and talented education) after school classes, and there was after school tutoring which most kids don't take advantage of when they start to fall behind. When I was little I used to be really shy. Now I'm independent, I've had a job the past two summers, I'm going to be buying a truck as soon as I find one within my budget, I know how to manage my money- something most adults don't even know how to do, and I wasn't taught how to do that. I apply myself, and I think anyone is capable of doing the same (besides circumstances that may keep them from doing so, of course). Being homeschooled has not improved my relationship with either of my parents, and neither of them teach me. I think that if you're going to homeschool, especially someone who is young, it's good to make sure that they have plenty of friends, are social, don't lean on their parents for too much support and learn to be independent. Because when you get out in the real world, everything changes. It isn't all the nice, safe home environment they're used to. And homeschooling is really great because I can work at my own pace (fast). I think the most important thing is the social skills and not leaning on parents for support too much because it's going to come back and bite 'em in the butt later in life. There needs to be a balance between their independence and their controlled environments.

hlks said:" I guess I still don't understand what you do if a child really isn't interested in a subject. what if, no matter what, your child seems interested in everything BUT history? Or everything BUT literature? Don't you think you'll eventually come across something that they really just don't care about but something that's important? I love the idea of learning by going to museums and setting up cool experiments and things like that.. and I'll definitely really follow my child's interests... but I also want to make sure they learn everything they need to.. not just what they want to. "

Having gone through this with 3 children who are now graduated, I guess I feel qualified to answer...lol. :P

YES!!! You WILL come across this! You will even come across this in the subjects they LOVE!

I mean - who ever ENJOYED grammar, for instance?

Part of the homeschooling experience is to teach our children to become productive and reliable adults. To do this they must learn not only to do what they love, but also to do what they MUST. What is required of them, even when/if they don't want to.

There are a myriad of ways to do this, and honestly, you, as mom, know your child best and know what works best. Don't sell yourself short. That is one of the BIGGEST positives of homeschooling. That the one person in the whole world that knows this child inside and out is doing the instruction. As you progress in your homeschooling "walk" you will find yourself becoming very creative, drawing on experiences of others, from books, even from curriculums.

You'll be surprised at what YOU can accomplish!

I'll give you a couple of examples of two ways I learned to cope with the situation you speak of.

My kids and I always struggled with Algebra. For some reason, my mind was more mathematical and I could NOT get across the concept of Algebra, especially to my eldest who is very abstract in her thinking (she's going for her master's in art...lol). We would both end up in tears three out of five days. This was the TOUGHEST one I ever had to solve!! Here's what we ended up doing. First and foremost, I had her tutored for a while. Just to give us both a break. We had a friend in our church who just happened to be an algebra teacher....:) He tutored her for a few weeks just to give us a break and to help her through some of the concepts she was struggling with. We got a public school Algebra curriculum. When we did this we found that my daughter's Algebra I covered EVERYTHING that was in Algebra I and II in the public school curriculum!!! So, guess what! We took two years to do her Algebra book, and counted it as Algebra I and II. This is perfectly legal, as you will find if you study high school credits. This loosened up her Algebra course, gave her more time away from it and more time to do her homework. It certainly was no magic cure, but it made our live livable from there on out! Very seldom were we reduced to tears after that, because the pressure was off!

Since then, there is another option - enroll them in public school for that class. Most public schools now allow homeschoolers to be enrolled in one or two classes and in extracurricular activities.

Another example - this involved History and Geography in junior high. I simply did not see the reason to separate the two. I was actually doing a satellite school that year. I decided to combine history and geography and with the two texts as a basis, and using other references, field trips, etc, I basically wrote my own curriculum for the year. Because I was doing satellite school, I had to have it approved, which it did with no problem. After all, it went far beyond any text ever could! So, sometimes by combining subjects or bringing in the practical aspects of what you are teaching via projects or field trips, you can make the subject a lot more interesting.

These are just two ways. I used a lot of work units, "special days" where we would put to use what we had learned - for ex. a "mideival day" or a "pilgrim day". Similar to what you'd see at a historical site. We did all the field trips we could, used a lot of books from the library. All in conjunction with the curriculum. We even performed skits for other small private schools about a subject we were studying.

We homeschooled with other families for a few years and at different times. A co-op school, especially for certain subjects. This was great, but took a lot of time and dedication.

None of this is easy to do, for soon you will find yourself being overwhelmed. I took three to five days every late summer to "escape" somewhere - a relative or even a motel - to make my lesson plans for the year. This is when I chose WHAT I would use out of the curriculum, what I would supplement with, and what I would replace and with what. I worked probably 18 hours a day for those days coming up with my yearly lesson plan. This was not a cast in stone plan, but a guide as to what I hoped to do and a POSSIBLE way to accomplish it. But it was broken down by all three children, by subject and by day and week.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned since I joined is that before you begin or even think much about homeschool, it is really a good idea to come up with a statement of intent as to why you homeschool and what you hope to accomplish. This should be fairly detailed, a page or two long, and should involve not only your feelings, but your husband's as well.

Hope this helps a little bit!

I plan to homeschool my son because I do not want him to become the product of our government. I will raise my child, the government will not...

dfrnt I totally disagree with you that younger kids should go to school. Social skills are not learnt by going to school. Social skills are learnt even before a child reaches school age. It is everything that is done away from the school environment. If your friends have all deserted you,I would have to ask myself,whether they really are my friends. Parents as home educators can teach a child just as well,or better than any qualified teacher. A person does not need a university degree to be able to teach.

Just wanted to drop in and say hello to all of you homeschool moms and homeschool moms to be. Ive been homeschooling my 3 children for 10 years now and i love it. People make fun of me and tell me i should put the min public school where they can get a proper education. I look at them and i Laught and say I dont think so. what i do is proper education. I would love to meet others who schhol at home and be able to talk about how we feel for what we choose to do right for our children. have a great day ladies and god bless. Michelle.