Just out of curiosity–what does your daughter think about NOT going to school with her friends? Seems like she will be out of touch by default.

I wish you luck in this endeavor. Personally, I want my son to have a wide range of experiences and home schooling just shelters them in my opinion no matter how well organized you think you are or how “formal” the environment is–it’s still home.

oh well…good luck…

I Home schooled starting in high school, and my wife was home schooled most of her schooling career. We turned out fine

As long as she still gets to be in the outside world some with friends, she will be fine

Mike: Thank you for your comments. My daughter won’t be missing out on her “friends”. We have only been in this district for two months, and the only two real friends she’s made so far both live within a block of us.

She will also not miss out on a wide range of experiences. She will be attending some classes at the YMCA< which will be fun, educational AND social. There are also a lot of other things we have planned, including community service.

I feel she will honestly be MORE well-rounded and exposed to opportunities than she ever was in a public school.

Good for you! Please don’t let anyone give you doubts about this… especially about the “socialization”. We have always homeschooled our son, 9, and he is one of the most socially adept young people you could ever imagine… able to converse to a wide range of ages in a very appropriate manner. You will definitely have challenges, but always remember why you have chosen to homeschool… to give the best education available to your daughter.

We have been homeschooling our children for about 5 years now. I was sceptical at first, but have seen nothing but good from this path.

The most common argument I hear from others is regarding the “socialization” issue or supposed lack of socialization. They assume that the socialization that happens at a public school is good because that is what they experienced.

What they don’t consider is that the public school environment is not what we had when we grew up.

I am glad to hear that you are taking advantage of the local YMCA and other events in your area. One thing that I would stress is to locate and get involved with a local homeschooling support group. They will be able to help you locate other attractive activities and can also server as a source of “socialization” as well.

I wish you all the best in this endeavour.

Kat,
My wife and I home schooled 4 of our children for 8 years. One has her diploma from High School. This is the first year we have placed the remaining three in private school. We could not afford to send them to a better school for many years, and the public schools where we live are horrible. That’s why we originally decided to home school. Contrary to some people who have preconceived notions about home schooled kids being isolated social retards, when done correctly, home schooling is so much better than the spoon fed dumbed down curriculum found in a lot of school districts.
We placed them in a private school for this year, to see how they would adjust, and to get their opinions and feedback on which educational path is better to determine if we want to go back to homeschooling for the following year.
Yes, it is difficult to do and, as a parent, you need to stay on top of all the paperwork and such. It’s easy to wake up and just blow a day off and do nothing with your child but hang out. That’s still one of the greatest benefits of home schooling, being able to spend time with your child instead of shuffling them off to the sheep farm.
I wish you the best of luck!

Mike,
My son has been home schooled for a year now. He has more friends than he did when he was in school, I’m not quite sure why your so stubborn in your opinion to discredit home schoolers. Everyone says more parents should take an active role in their child’s educational development, and your saying that we shouldn’t. Your also implying that you know that me and other parents are not smart enough to teach our children, when you know nothing about my, Kat’s, or any other home schooling parent. There is no evidence to back up your claim, there is however tons of evidence to the contrary. There is no better way to make sure that your child (the most important person in the world) is getting the best education available to your child. Maybe you should enroll your child into home schooling before you knock it. Abeka Academy at www.abeka.com is a wonderful program, with books, DVDs, workbooks, curriculum (which by the way is accepted by almost every school district)… and more, everything you need to be able to teach your child at home. Maybe the public school system is better in your area than in ours, maybe you have more private schools in your area than we do in ours, maybe you have more money than the rest of us to send your child away to private school… neither of which is any of my business, nor my concern. My only concern is my children and answering the questions that other people have about enrolling their children in the same course that I have. Home schooling is not for everyone or every child, it takes money, time, commitment, determination on both the parents and child, and in some cases their family. Now that’s what it’s all about, Family. My father in-law who has many degrees in teaching, child development, school administration to name a few, has worked in the local public school system, has investigated Abeka Academy, along with many other home school programs, has said ” The public school system is over crowed, under staffed, under budgeted, and is the biggest problem facing Americans today. Also, that until the federal government steps in and starts helping the local governments in a fair and un-discriminatory way, it’s not going to get any better.” Public school systems currently receives funding for labeling children as In Need of Services, although knowing first hand that the test that are given to determine this are not being conducted within the federal regulations, thus giving the school permission to manipulate the system without any recourse. Not only do the regulations get ignored, they also are given by the school system and not by a private source. Our oldest son left elementary school getting A’s and B’s, he entered the middle school and started bringing home C’s and D’s. The same is happening with our youngest son, who used to love going to school and now hates school. Our oldest son is now in Abeka and is getting A’s and B’s with one C. Our youngest son is not wanting to be home schooled yet. He has decided to investigate the private and charter schools in the area and is leaning towards the charter school because that’s what he would like to do. He has said he doesn’t hate school, just the one that he’s in. He doesn’t feel that the teachers are working for him, or for that matter, like him. There are many different reasons to choose different ways to educate your children. What is right for one child is not necessarily right for the other. It is the decision of the parent to get involved, investigate, and remember… we live in America, we have choices, it doesn’t need to be black and white, and there are many colors in-between.
Kat,
If there is anything I can help you with please feel free to contact us @ rush2 at hotmail dot com. I believe you will be a very good teacher and no one knows what’s better for a child than their parents.

–Eric

I would definitely recommend finding and joining a local homeschool group…they can be a good resource for information and support. Also, it would be advisable to join HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Association - http://www.hslda.org). Unfortunately, there are people out there that have a very negative view of homeschooling and may do what they feel is their ‘civic-duty’ by reporting you to the local authorities. HSLDA keeps up on all the state home education laws and would be invaluable if there were to be issues regarding withdrawing your daughter from public school.

I live in an economically depressed area and here homeschooling is the choice of many.

Public schools are a joke, young people in public schools are joining gangs to survive, doing drugs, or joining the Marines to get away, (which fuels the war machine and makes the corporations richer).

This my second post since I have started using Ubuntu Linux, it is nice to see my daily routines can still be done.

2 days ago Microsuck notified me that my legally owned Windows XP pro disk could not be activated because I have activated it too many times. I have owned the XP pro disk since 2001 and over the years because of Windows crashes and hardware failures have reinstalled many times.

I completely changed over to Ubuntu linux 2 days ago.

I will never use a Microsoft product again. Microsoft should not and will not tell me anymore that I cannot use a product that I bought and paid for
and is in my own home.

We’ve been homeschooling our 3 kids from day one. We feel as though that’s our God given duty and responsibility and are thankful we live in a country where we can do that freely.

On the subject of socialization, when it’s time to give our kids that lesson we go out back during “recess” and I beat them up and take their lunch money. : )

Hang in there, He WILL provide all you NEED.
John