As my son prepares for his graduation from high school, I have found myself pondering—what if I would’ve homeschooled?
Becoming a mom at 18 didn’t leave a lot of room for me to be creative. I had to work and go to college, so my son was in daycare almost right after he was born. He attended daycare until he was 5, and then was enrolled in elementary school. Fast forward 12 years, and he is now a senior in high school. He is a popular kid who is involved in a lot of extracurricular activities. His grades are okay—he could do better if he applied himself more, but for the most part, he has been a decent student. Soon, he will be off to college and making a mark on the world. But if I had to do it all over again, I think I would have chosen to homeschool him as well as my 7 year old daughter.
Homeschooling was never an option for me all of those years ago because I had to go out and make money. I wasn’t married, so there wasn’t another income to depend on. But seeing the outcomes of those that I know who have homeschooled, I feel like I missed out on an opportunity to teach my children.
I am very involved with my children’s education. I attend meetings, follow up with the teachers, and make sure that work is being done. I feel that I am partners with the educational process and with the school and teachers. But after doing some research on homeschooling, I feel that perhaps this would’ve been the more beneficial route for us. My son is such a social butterfly, so I know being in a traditional school setting really works for him; but school is more than socializing.
In the past, I used to turn my nose up and those who homeschooled. I only thought that people in rural areas who didn’t want their kids to interact with others homeschooled. Of course, I now know that is incorrect. I have read many blogs written by homeschoolers that has taught me that well rounded children can prosper in a homeshooling environment.
Now that I am a work at home mom, I feel that the option for me to homeschool is becoming something I want to explore. My daughter is in the 2nd grade, and would transition to homeshooling with ease, I think. I don’t want to stunt her growth or change her routine too much, but trust me, I am researching this option a lot to see if this is something I want to do.
Have you homeschooled? Or were you homeschooled? What are the pros or cons associated with schooling a child at home? And what could I be overlooking? I would love to read your thoughts on this.
Great post and my hubby and I were just talking about this this morning. I’ll be following the comments here because if I can homeschool AND still work, I would love to do that for our son who is 13 now.
I homeschooled my daughter from the time she was two until the second trimester of kindergarten, and she liked it, but wanted to try out traditional schooling. I was hesitant, because I thought that schools, both public and private were lax in their curriculum, I thought my standards were higher! She was reading, writing, and had her own computer by age three, so she’s bright but she yearned for an environment that would allow her to grow away from me 24/7. Fast forward…I put her in a local elementary school because everything I heard about it was fantastic, and they were competitive with private schools in the area. She thrived, and the school is absolutely amazing! Now my son (who’s three) has been at home with me instead of daycare/ preschool, and he was just tested to enter the preschool program at my daughter’s school and he is at a 5-6 year-old level in everything, and my 6 year-old daughter tests at a fourth grade level! I’m glad we decided to try out traditional school, because they both get the best of both worlds, I still buy homeschool curticulum because pre-k – third grade are the most formative years of a child’s education, but as a business owner I also now have the time to dedicate to building my business and focus on my career! In the fall when my son starts preschool I’ll have even more time, and after a while, you get the itch to get back to work. I was exhausted when I was homeschooling, because I’d do 6 hours of school and 18 hours of work….I literally went weeks without even 1 hour of sleep! Now I am on several PTO committees, and volunteer at the school several days a week, and help with our girl scout troop, but my daughter is happy and we’ve made a few new friends that will probably be lifelong, and I couldn’t ask for more!
Pulled our kids out of a private school just over 4 years ago and have never looked back. Will happily provide with as much info as I can, but it was truly the best decision we ever made for the future of our children … not every day is a picnic 😉 (can sure direct you to a post or two on that score!)
BUT, my kids thrive, are way ahead, have an awesome view of the world and I no longer no longer spend hours and hours volunteering behind the scenes where my kids never saw me anyway!
Be in touch …
Hi,
I’m assuming your are a fulltime stay at home mom then with 4 children? I would love to see the resources and tips you may have. I’ll follow you on twitter for direct contact. Thanks in advance!
I like Tabitha’s idea of still getting the homeschool curriculum to supplement anything you may think is missing is the traditional school setting, rather than shifting roles yourself.
You can take my response with a grain of salt, though, as I have no children of my own (yet).
When I first became a teacher I thought about the future of my someday children. I thought, “With all I learn in the classroom, I think I may want to homeschool my own children someday…”
For a couple of years I still toyed with this idea. Now, after 12 years of being in the classroom, I can honestly say that I feel ill-equipped to be the sole provider of my own child’s education. I do, however, feel as though I can provide a home environment that is rich with educational enrichment, be ready to discuss/reinforce what’s going on in my children’s lessons and still be “MOM.”
I think the role of mother is an enormous one – it INCLUDES teacher, but it is also caretaker and unconditional love. I think it is an important enough role that it should be distinguished from teacher.
I have an INCREDIBLE amount of respect for the families who embrace homeschooling and, like you, am often in awe of the results of such an education, but I don’t think it is for me maybe just because I was a teacher and I want to be something different than that to my own children.
…oh no. As I’m writing this I’m starting to think about it again. Good luck in your decision!!
I home schooled my step-daughter for 5 years because we lived out on a little island with a population of 7 at the time. The first year, I bought a lousy curriculum, but after that I used the Calvert School curriculum – and loved it. (It’s the same curriculum that Sandra Day O’Connor learned from as a kid.)
The local school board was not helpful, sadly, but the Calvert School assigns a teacher to look over your lessons. You send your child’s work in after every 20 lessons or so for review. One nice thing is that a day’s worth of schoolwork only took us 2 to 4 hours!
I could go on and on about the subject, but instead of plugging up your comments, I’ll just say that it was challenging in many ways, but I learned a lot from the experience, it brought us closer and I think it helped contribute towards her habit of being a lifelong learner. It also gave me a LOT more respect for teachers!
Best wishes to you!
Tui
WOW – 2-4 hours? Then is actually possible to do this and work at the same time especially since my son is a teenager now. Hmmmm….wheels are turning in my head.
I’m going to look up the Calvert curriculum and begin doing more research as we may have to make a change next school season for our sun. He’s currently in private montesorri school.
Thanks Tui!
I agree! Our school work days were not very long. We had plenty of time for everything else. With my pregnancy early on I was very sick so I had to stop and then dealing with hubby’s unemployment we ended up putting them (the oldest three) back in public school. Although I do continue to homeschool my preschoolers and I plan to homeschool my youngest three from the beginning.
We unschool and here’s a link to my answers to a questionnaire about us: http://www.doliferight.com/2009/08/12/20-unschooling-questions-frank-from-seattle-wa/
I am a homeschooling mother of four. We did not start out as homeschoolers. We have tried both public and private schooling for our oldest two children. I was very involved in both settings. The children performed above average in public school setting since we worked with them prior to entering school. The cost of private school education for four children was too much for us. We realized we would be working to pay for school at the added expense of less family time. Those costs were too much for us, so we decided to homeschool as our third child reached school age.
We all homeschool for various reasons and face different obstacles as homeschoolers. I was the primary bread winner for the first 3 years of homeschooling. I worked as a charge nurse in labor and delivery 3 nights a week and homeschooled so I understand the difficulties of working and homeschooling. But the reasons why we chose and the personal growth of each child drives us to continue our journey.
I try to think of homeschooling as simply being parent directed learning. The choices and options available when you think of it that way are limitless. You as a parent have the opportunity to hand tailor your child’s learning experience to fit their personal learning style. You have time to work on personal weaknesses. Even so, there will be good days and bad days, but I can’t imagine any other work worth doing or anything more important to invest myself in.
Best wishes to you as you ponder your options.
Dorcus
Glad you wrote on this topic because it’s something me and my husband discuss for our son.
I’d like to homeschool him since I see myself traveling a lot once my business grows and I don’t want to pull him out of school.
I’m not afraid of denying him a social life since homeschooling groups do just as much, if not more with children to attend field trips, events and sports.
Please keep your readers updated on if you decide to go this route with your daughter.
They (homeschool groups) have a lot of things for the kids to do and one thing that I enjoyed the most was the flexibility it offered us. We would have a day of school outside and do a nature study and journal. Especially if the day was nice. You can always “take school with you” in a sense…LOL
I homeschool my little ones now (2 1/2 and 3 1/1) using a preschool curriculum with ABCMouse. I am the mother of five with one on the way (Due 5-17-2012) and they will more than likely be homeschooled. My older children I had homeschooled them briefly (2010 end – 2011 beginning school year) and it worked out great. My oldest son is a freshman in high school and went in as an honors student with 2 credits already due to being homeschooled. My next to oldest (who is supposedly special needs???!!!) is in a middle school and taking regular classes. My next son is in the second grade in which this certain school decided since he was homeschooled they feel he needed to repeat the same grade he was in when he was in “public school” yet he is surpassing all the other kids in his class. So now they are rethinking “their” decision…go figure! LOL Like you I was an unwed mother with my first child and did not have that option, then I got married and my ex-husband was abusive, so there wasn’t an option then either…although I deeply wanted to. Well fast forward now…I am happily married and know that in fact it was the best option for my family and if I had the option then I would have homeschooled with no doubts about it. If you are in a position to home school then I say do it! I know I am and loving it…I just wish I would have started ALL my children sooner than later. But it all worked itself out. Sorry about taking up all this writing space but I feel so passionate about it…If I can help you or anyone else with resources (I have a TON) or information. Please shoot me an email…I would love to help all of you. God Bless you. mystiquak2012 (at) gmail (dot) com
I actually want to do some investigating into unschooling. My son attends a public school now ( my little girl is only 2) but im interested in finding ways to teach them at the home that don’t necessary involve formal lessons.