I could get into all the reasons why we haven't, but I'm sure it would read like nothing but a bunch of excuses. Suffice it to say, I think the benefits obvious, but I'm apprehensive about my ability to pull it off. I think it's time to look into it seriously now. I don't even know where to begin.

If you homeschooled your kids, or you're doing so currently, I would really appreciate any kind of input you can offer. My son is nine, and finishing up third grade. He's smart, and he loves to learn. I am pretty sure he has AD/HD as he's had some behavioral difficulties in class and at home, and a few weeks ago leading up to a state exam, had himself convinced that he couldn't write a short paper. When we managed to overcome his anxiety, he wrote exactly what the assignment asked with ease. I looked up the Mayo Clinic's list of AD/HD symptoms, and it was like a line-item "yup, that's him." So that's something we'll have to figure out also, but wholly worth mentioning and the associated issues with it have been part of what's made me really hesitant to try homeschooling.

I'll be looking at resources and information online today, but if you have experience with this, I'd welcome any input! Thanks in advance.

My youngest sister just graduated from a hybrid/co-op homeschool program last year.
IIRC, it was homeschool with 2 days of in-class instruction, which allows some of the social interaction.
Her class was about 15 kids.

That's the sum-total of my experience. We've briefly thought about it off & on the past few years, but time & both of us working full-time are always an issue.

We have multiple relatives who do. In every single case, the mother does not work. Homeschooling is a full time job. I suppose that should be the first consideration.

Homeschooled our three kids after starting with public schools in Iowa. It worked well, took less time than with public schools, they got a better education overall, and they were socially more mature when they finished. We did dual enrollment and did yearly testing to help track progress. Colleges favor homeschooled kids because they're more socially mature and more disciplined (i.e. don't need hand holding) at college.

For ADHD and how it relates to learning styles, homeschooling options can be very helpful. We changed curriculum and approaches to fit the learning styles of each kid and saw big benefits. That's frequently hard or impossible at public schools.

Having step kids in school and biological ones homeschooled I can compare a little.

I agree with Bryan that homeschool takes way less than 7 hours a day. 3-4 hours tops and they've processed more actual work and one on one time than any public school.

My 2 get socialization with church clubs and friends outside of school. I don't think they miss as much of the social learning as I originally anticipated.

And as Bryan said I think my 2 are socially more mature. They don't care for BS kids their age do. They are both (boy and girl) about 2-3 years above their peers.

With all that said, as much as we love our own kids. Being with them that extra 35-40 hours a week can require finding ways to get some alone time. It's a lot of work having that extra commitment, but it is well worth it from my experience.

you got email

My 11 year old son struggles with ADHD, but we refuse to consider medications yet. I was able to utilize coping mechanisms and overcome to success. He can also. Coddling and enabling is the worst thing possible, and most public schools choose that route out of desperation. Our son was able to easily manipulate the system, and he was all too able to slide into 3rd grade unable to read or perform basic 1st grade math. For 2 years (1st and 2nd grade) we trusted the schools special education office to help. They spent extra time with him, utilized whatever special training they told us they had in his "disabilities", and we backed them up at home. Meanwhile his behaviors went downhill, and it became clear to us that intervention was needed beyond what the school was willing or able to provide. COVID learning from home was the perfect opportunity to make a change. We allowed him to participate with his class and started supplementing with workbooks, flashcards, and extra assignments after school/work hours. It didn't take long to see big improvements with our efforts. When discussion of masks being required at schools happened the following year, we yanked him and enrolled in our state's homeschool program. That was the beginning of 4th grade. Our state's office helped us to perform assessment tests and suggested curriculum, offered to help wherever we needed it. Going into 4th grade, he couldn't count past 12, couldn't perform basic addition and subtraction, certainly couldn't do any multiplication or division, and couldn't read beyond a pre-K level. For the last 2 years we've been starting over from the basics. Honestly, we sent him to pre-k and kindergarten performing better than he was at starting 4th. A lot was attitude and what I called "Mr. Ed" cheating. He would watch your face while guessing at answers. He had lots of cheats and coping mechanisms to hide with. We removed the cheats, got rid of the technology, and started over. Today, as I write this, he's with my wife at an interview for a classical private school (latin, old fashioned grammar and traditional studies). I'm not sure it's a good fit for him yet, but he reads at a 7th grade level, writes reports and essays at a 7th grade level, in cursive and on the computer in word. We've been working on APA formatting, which still needs work but he gets the concepts. He can at the drop of a hat outline and write a 5 paragraph essay. His spelling and penmanship is above grade level (better than his sister who's graduated). Math still needs work, but reading and writing was our focus. He can at least get through 5th grade level math though. We discovered that the teaching field isn't what it used to be. True educators are not the norm anymore. The majority of teachers read the lesson outlines they're told to read, and push the kids through. It's up to kids to want to learn. Some kids can still do very well, and I think most teachers will go a great distance to help those who show an interest and ask with respect. My stubborn boy will spend 2 hours figuring out how to get out of 5 minutes of work. Most schools can't handle that. Your kid, your responsibility. He goes to work with us, and we take time teaching him each day. We pick and choose from the available curriculum, but mostly approach from a classical perspective of reading classic works and writing assignments based off those works. Our greatest accomplishment so far is that our son LOVES to read, and doesn't think he is dumb anymore. He is a whole different person now. He is able to self-pace and do a lot of self-learning. Probably we spend less than 5 focused hours a week of our time (between the wife and myself) teaching. We've taught skills and tools to find the answers. Loading up his room (at our office) with books and resources to do this has been expensive, but good resources last a lifetime. He's managed to "brick" 2 desktops, a laptop, and 2 tablets... so he still does a lot of book reading and handwriting. We have to keep calculators under lock and key... but it's a process.

I cannot recommend homeschooling enough. No one cares as much about your child as you do. Some kids are driven to succeed despite the system they're in. Some kids can thrive and excel through the system. Indoctrination of socialist agendas aside (which should be enough to yank your kids from public school alone), you only get them living in your house for so many years. I have zero regrets about hanging onto every second we have.

We did not.

Instead we researched school districts and moved to a district that we liked for many reasons. Their mother quit her job and became active in their schools, first as a volunteer and then as an admin employee and substitute teacher, and now as a librarian.

As they got older we decided to move to another school district in order to better suit the kids based mainly on the high school and the changing demographics in our old area.

I read a lot of comments about how all public schools are shitty and how homeschooling is the only way. I assure you that good public schools and good public school teachers exist. They aren’t all raging leftists forcing pride flags on your kids. But you have to be willing to be involved in their education and be willing, and able, to move or make arrangements to get them to another school if you feel it’s appropriate. I’m fortunate enough to be able to live virtually anywhere in the country which I know isn’t possible for everyone.

We made our decision and I wouldn’t change it. Though if my kids had mental disabilities I might have rethought that. I can see where, depending on the severity, a more focused program would be very valuable.

The key either way is involvement.

quote:

Originally posted by Pale Horse:
But you have to be willing to be involved in their education and be willing, and able, to move or make arrangements to get them to another school if you feel it’s appropriate.

We moved from the SeaTac area to Arizona for many reasons, but one of the major ones was to get my son to different schools, or at least out of the grips of the socialist indoctrination of the schools there. I can't homeschool him through university and I asked my wife "what if we home school him right and he goes to friggin' UW?" We both shuddered.

I appreciate the replies. I'm listening, considering, and looking into things. I've found some resources for Arizona home schooling and starting to read up. This may very well be a thing where he finishes up third grade at public school and we do fourth grade at home.

Aksuper, that’s fantastic progress with your son. Well done! I’m heartened by that.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:

quote:

Originally posted by Pale Horse:
But you have to be willing to be involved in their education and be willing, and able, to move or make arrangements to get them to another school if you feel it’s appropriate.

We moved from the SeaTac area to Arizona for many reasons, but one of the major ones was to get my son to different schools, or at least out of the grips of the socialist indoctrination of the schools there. I can't homeschool him through university and I asked my wife "what if we home school him right and he goes to friggin' UW?" We both shuddered.

Lol.

Yeah I mean at some point you’ve got to let go no matter what. Giving them a good solid base is important.

FWIW my exes cousin was raised in a conservative household and went to Berkeley for four years but still stood by her upbringing. She now works in DC for a conservative media group. So with the right base, and the right maturity level, kids can survive intact but certainly I want my kids to go to a more conservative school.

You seem like a good guy with a good head on your shoulders. I’m sure you’ll make the right decisions.

Homeschooling takes lots of patience, which I happen to have a lot of. If you don't have patience, it's an opportunity to grow in that area.

This is our first year homeschooling and we're in the third quarter of 7th grade. We escaped Oregon last summer because of the leftist ideology. I left my job in the tech sector and it was the best decision we ever made. It took us the first half of the year to get into a groove and a routine.

Our state has a homeschool association that has guides to getting started. We had to send a notice to our school district superintendent of our intention to homeschool. You need to look at your state's regulations on what is required. Florida is quite relaxed and they let parents decide what they teach, how they teach and at what level they want to teach their children.

You also have to decide if you want your child to have a Christian-based or religious-based education. We did, so we went with a Christian-based homeschooling program from Abeka. Abeka curriculum is very content heavy. We spent the first half of the school year teaching my son to develop study habits he never learned, even in private christian school.

Abeka has different levels of programs. You can outright buy a whole school year of materials which includes student books, teacher's edition books, a class schedule, tests, quizzes, activity books and DVD's. You can choose which books and videos to buy. I have three times more teacher's edition books than my son has textbooks.

We started with their accredited program which sets us on a digital online calendar with every day's lesson mapped out for the year. You can choose a traditional 5-day class week or an extended 4-day class week which spans over more months for the year. The main thing to remember is that you have a full calendar year to finish the work. But that's to stay on their accredited program which gives the kids college credit to a Christian college.

All my son's tests and quizzes are online, as well as the video lessons. As he finishes the video lessons, the tests and quizzes become available. The system logs his grades and the date/time he spent watching the video lessons. The only thing I'm required to do is fill out a quarterly progress report to document what he scored on his book reports and other projects that are not digital, as well as a weekly exercise journal for PE.

Even though we started with a 5-day schedule and we started 3 weeks early, we fell 2 weeks behind before the end of the first quarter. I had them switch to a 4-day schedule and we worked through holidays to get caught up. We're now fully caught up in the 3rd quarter and may pull ahead and finish early.

I usually get the boy up at 7-ish and we start school around 8-ish after he's made breakfast and made his bed and got dressed for the day. If all goes well, we're done by 3PM with all his classes which includes a couple of breaks in between and a 30 minute to 1 hour lunch.

I'm also trying to get my gunsmithing work done during class time, but it can be challenging to get work done and keep my son on track. I use timers to give my son a goal to be done at a certain time with a class or school task and that helps us stay on schedule. I'll work in the garage for 20 to 30 minutes and come back and check on his progress.

Other programs are not so structured and they are still acceptable. The bottom line is that the state (or at least our state) requires you to keep a log of work done and keep all his school work archived as proof of homeschooling. The main point is that you have to prove that your child is academically improving every year.

Don't get caught up on the ADD/AD-HD thing. The child just needs parental attention, guidance and patience. My son would have been diagnosed on the autistic spectrum in kindergarten but we refused to get on that bus. They would most certainly have pumped him full of psychotropic medications and he would be a shell of the person he is today. Children's brains all develop at different levels and we just worked hard with him to keep up with school, reading and math.

My son used to be silent and would answer questions incoherently in kindergarten, simply because he wasn't following the conversation and wasn't listening to the question being asked. He's spout off random stuff that had nothing to do with what was being asked. He's now almost 13 years old and every adult he meets is blown away by the actual conversations they can have with him that are way more intellectual than they are used to with other kids his age.

He's that way because I invest everything I have into him at the cost of my own comfort and desires. He's smart, respectful, chivalrous, and he loves GOD. I've taught him manners and discretion, patience and self-control.

More coming in the next post...

This is something I desperately want to do but my doesn't have the capacity to deal with the kids to that level. My sister is doing it for my niece and its 3 days at home and 2 days doing "class" or activities. I love the idea behind the program and allowing kids to train themselves and learn at their own pace but know it day has a specific amount to learn.

My wife has been homeschooling ours for three years now. It's been tough in some ways. It is a lot of time with the kids, and you lose out on time alone and time with adults that you'd have if you worked and sent them to school. But the rewards are there too. My daughter loves to read, and her brothers seem to be following along in that vein as they are learning to read. They like learning, although they often whine about school time. They are also spared the brutality of the "Lord of the Flies" peer group in government schools. They still socialize with neighbors, adults and kids, and interact with adults when we run errands etc. and we do 2 co-ops once a week each, but they are not locked in with the same 30 kids all day every day.

We use a customized curriculum Primarily based on Simply Charlotte Mason, and her ideas, but also using Right Start math, All About Reading, and a variety of other resources.

Ours is Christian based to provide them a firm foundation for the rest of their lives. I think that's important largely because I did not have that and I find it difficult to reorient my worldview to accommodate Good, Evil, and some other concepts. I reflexively look to "rational" explanations. I would prefer my kids be able to recognize something as evil, then perhaps look for the reason someone turned to evil, rather than my secular instinct to rationalize it away first.

They still pick up bad words and ideas from the neighborhood kids who go to government schools. That's life, and I don't know how much we should shelter them even if I could.

I will second some other members' remarks on ADHD. In many ways it is a diagnosis of being a child, especially of being a boy. Homeschooling allows you to tailor things to your child. You can take a break whenever it's needed. You can make your son go run laps, or do math by moving bricks, or go outside and do nature study when things are getting stressed inside.
My 8yo middle son without a doubt would be a discipline problem in school. He is above grade level in math and gets bored with repetition of stuff he knows, and when he gets bored, he finds ways to amuse himself.

Good luck in whatever you choose, and ask more as you think of more questions. We will share what we know. In general homeschoolers are very welcoming and supportive as you can see demonstrated in this thread.

More comments...

Social interaction:
Social interaction with other kids is important as well as with adults. There are numerous facebook groups and homeschool groups that have meet-ups and field trips. We just went to Busch Gardens yesterday for a homeschool field trip. It was a guided zoo tour and when the tour was over, we were escorted outside the park and our field trip ended. If we wanted to ride the rides, we had to purchase a park ticket.

We've done field trips to museums and such as well. There is a trampoline park nearby that has a homeschool program. We pay a monthly reduced rate and kids can come and jump for 2 hours from open to 3PM. You have to show up before 3PM and you can still jump for 2 hours.

Lots of parents enroll their kids in boy/cub scouts or Trail Life (Christian boy scouts), or soccer, swimming, etc, to keep the engagement with other kids.

There are other school programs like "Classic Conversations" which I believe are the ones who meet weekly. And then there's "Un-schooling" which is basically free-reign on the parents and children to teach and learn what they want on the schedule they want. I view un-schooling like it was before we had a public school system. The child follows the parent around at a young age and learns a trade or simply life-skills that they will need to succeed.

Here are some comments on un-schooling from students and parents...




Recreation:
One of the things I do like about homeschooling my son is that we can call any day our weekend. We can hit theme parks on odd days or hit fishing spots on weekdays when the beaches aren't crowded at all. As long as we are getting our work done on our schedule, we can plan our outings to avoid rush-hour, weekend crowds and holiday crowds. I can give my son free time in the middle of the day while I hit the bank, Walmart and Costco on off-peak hours. Want to take a trip? Homeschool on the road!

Thing are working out for us and it's brought my son and I much closer. When I hear him talk, it's like I'm listening to a recording of myself. I teach him life lessons in the home and when out and about. Every moment can be a teachable moment. I do spend a lot of time on teaching human behavior, cause and effect, action and reaction. It's helping him put the pieces together in life so he can understand other people and why he or others act and react the way they do.

He always liked seeing me do video production for my company and for youtube videos. He asked me if I could teach him and now he makes and produces his own gaming videos. He's using advanced video production tools at the age of 12! He's now making how-to gaming videos for his YT channel.

Anyway, I have to wrap up, but that's my experience and take on homeschooling. Hope you make the decision that's right for you.

Tony.

Several of my family members use at home tutors - retired school teachers, usually.

It's worked out well, and is both more flexible, and far cheaper, than private school.

We have 4 children, and started homeschooling in about 1986. While mom was the teacher, I (Dad) was the Principal. Even though our eldest was in a private Christian school initially, there were issues with other students not being held accountable for their unruly behavior, and we encountered such things as math tests in the room when the multiplication tables were visible all along the tops of the walls in the room. We knew there were going to be problems, and we started homeschooling when she was in 2nd grade. Our 2nd child had ADHD, and knew she would have been one of those who "slipped through the cracks" in school. We found that phosphatidylserine helped tremendously--she kept up with it all through HS. Our youngest wanted to go to school at about 10th grade, but we stayed the course. The nice thing is that they all think for themselves today, can spell, use math, and communicate both verbally and in writing. Incidentally, they all excelled in post HS and all got at least a Masters degree. No regrets. Our three grandkids are now also being homeschooled by their mom.

We have 4 kids who are all now homeschooled. We live in a conservative area of a conservative state, and even then public schools were not ever really a consideration. They all started out in a local K-6 Christian School, which had a philosophy of education and religious base that we agreed with. Our original plan was for them all to continue at that school through 6th grade, and our oldest did, but some changes began happening at the school that resulted in us pulling them all out over a couple of years.

My son's 6th grade year, the school got a new administrator who started making changes to bring the structure of the school more in-line with the public school system's structure and educational philosophy. Some of the older more experienced teachers balked at this, and their contracts didn't get re-signed. they got replaced with younger, millenial/gen-z types who had no experience and no control over their classrooms. My daughter, who was a couple of years behind my son, was struggling academically in a classroom where kids were unruly (up to and including throwing chairs) and she wasn't able to focus. It seemed like she drew the short straw every year and always ended up with some young inexperienced teacher who didn't hold her accountable or provide us with the information that we needed to track her progress (didn't help that the new administrator implemented a new grading scale that did away with the traditional "A-F" system that everybody understands in favor of some feel-good modern thing), and by the end of 4th grade she still struggled with reading and basic math. The two younger boys were fortunate and still had good teachers that year.

We followed our original plan and began homeschooling my oldest in 7th grade, but we also pulled my daughter and started homeschooling her as well. The two younger boys were placed in classes with teachers that we knew and trusted, so we left them in the school.

The first year of homeschooling was rough. My son's attitude wasn't the best about it, and it took a few months of fighting him every day to get him to understand that if he just sat down and did it, he could be done by noon and free to do whatever he wanted. My daughter had a lot of academic hurdles to overcome, and she hadn't developed the ability to be self-directed, so it took a lot of effort up front to get her up to speed. By the end of the year she had caught up to where she needed to be academically, both finished their curriculum on time, and had mastered the material. They both had also gotten to a point where they said they would rather be homeschooled than go back to school, too.

We stuck it out with the two little boys for two more years, but the school continued to change, and when we got notice that the older one was slated to end up in one of the teacher's classes who we'd had problems with with my daughter, we decided to pull them as well. Their transition has been pretty painless, and they are doing well (the second-to-youngest is very smart and self-motivated, and the youngest is always happy to just go along with the program).

What we're doing may not work for everybody. Our situation is kind of unique. We made the decision a long time ago that raising our kids was the most important thing that we could do with our lives. We don't coddle them or let them run the house, but our #1 priority is to to mold them into decent, responsible adults. We positioned our finances and made a number of sacrifices so that my wife can stay home to raise/teach the kids, and I work so that she can do that. We also are familiar with homeschooling...my wife was homeschooled most of her elementary and secondary career, and I went to a small missionary school overseas that was taught primarily by parents or ad-hoc volunteers, so it was basically a step above homeschool so far as structure went. My wife's Mom actually retired from Abeka (the organization mentioned by Benny6 in his post above) and still works for them as a contractor, so we have that connection as well. My wife has an education background, primarily in language and arts, and I have a pretty solid math and technical foundation, in addition to some instructional experience from LE.

As far as curriculum, my wife has put her own thing together from a variety of different publishers. Math has been the area that I've been most directly involved in (if they can't figure it out during the day I work with them when I get home from work), and we are using Saxon for that. It builds the concepts incrementally and has ongoing review, so the kids develop a solid understanding over time. I couldn't tell you all the other subjects as my wife does most of that, but if you are interested in specifics, let me know and I can get you a list.

We have gotten involved with a local homeschool co-op that meets one day every other week. that has been a pretty good program as they tend to offer specialized classes that are harder to get at home. Things like art (my wife taught pottery, stained glass, drawing, painting, etc.), biology (my oldest did a full battery of dissections this year), speech (good to have an audience that's not just your family), classes with extensive writing projects that require them to complete stuff by specific deadlines...stuff like that.

We also try to get them out and "socialized" on a regular basis so we don't become that weird homeschool family who doesn't know how to talk to people. My oldest is working one day a week, we're pretty heavily involved at church, and all the kids are now volunteering at a local therapeutic horseback-riding place down the road from our house. One of the younger boys has gotten really involved in a local rock climbing club, and a couple have been doing 4H. They go to programs at the local library, and I've gotten them involved in helping out at the gun club and some shooting stuff.


My oldest is a freshman this year. We're planning on looking into some community college classes for him starting his junior year. He's expressed an interest in machining, and he may decide to pursue the trade route rather than college, which I'm ok with but there's still a few years left for him to decide.

We're still in the middle of it, so I can't really speak to the success or final outcome of our approach, but so far it's been very positive for us as a family. It's definitely a lot of work, takes a lot of commitment and determination, especially on my wife's part, and at times had been an outright fight. But the kids are doing better academically than they were in school, have had opportunities to do a lot of things that they otherwise wouldn't have, and we have a lot more time together as a family (and it's not all spent in the car running to and from school and other functions). Check back again in 10 years and I can give you a final report !