Thinking about homeschooling

Shelly is trying a test week of home schooling Fayth.

After seeing that Obamas "safe school" czar's foundation is recommending for reading (at the elementary school level) books that grown men wrote telling stories of oral sex in the bathrooms with same sex classmates as early as first grade, I think Shelly has reached her limit.

While Shelly and I both attended college and I have a worthless "education" of over 200 credit hours during which I learned next to nothing, and Shelly has a business degree that placed her firmly behind a desk at a travel agency once she graduated we have decided that Fayth will not be attending any college, Christian or otherwise. This recently was driven home when we were doing a bing search for college for girls and found videos of male/female and female/female sex on the floor while college girls smile and casually stand around with drink in hand watching as if this is the norm for a college party.

I don't think this is "normal" activity that should be passed off as the "thing to do" Something is wrong when 1/3 of an 8th grade class of girls claim they are "bisexual", when, at the age of 13 they shouldn't be sexual at all.

My 15 yr old and a niece the same age have both come home at different times and announced that they think they are lesbians.

I don't believe that college has any benefit whatsoever in today's economy. They few careers that require a college degree these days are fully staffed with haters of any entrepreneurial spirit and promote atheism over one's own choice of beliefs. My own niece and nephew attended a Christian college and were turned to agnostics within those four years. What started as two kids who had a faith and wanted to learn and expand their lives has now turned into two college graduates working for the county government and despising all republicans and despising their parents for not driving a Prius.

In the early days of our country almost all centers of higher learning were seminaries. Even Harvard. The bible was taught before anything else and all education was based on biblical principals. Somewhere along the way this changed and now biblical principals are something to be ridiculed.

Do any of you guys home school your kids? How difficult is it? We have lots of LDS friends who home school their kids. We've watched many of them grow up into hardworking entrepreneurial young adults. That is what I'd like Fayth to do. I will have to talk to some of my friends who have accomplished this with their kids.

That's why we send our kids to a christian private school, well that and other reasons!!

Although I know a lot of people that home schooled their kids, most were pretty backward socially. Though I have seen some successfully home schooled kids, I am pretty sure they are the families that have made a truly sincere effort to make sure their kids had social interactions. Because of the strong LDS network in the home school community, those kids have a bit of a leg up on the social interaction needed to be normal, well adjusted adults. That being said, I have also known some LDS kids that were as weird as could be imagined, that were home schooled. Think Uber bizarre. I had one work for me once. I would pick him up every thursday, we would work all day, and go home. I kept track, and we went six weeks without him saying a word. I did mortally embarrass him one time though. I saw side glance of him looking at some teenaged girls. He was 16, and all I said was," I saw that". He could not look me in thw eye for weeks, he was so embarrassed.

Mike Cooke said:

That's why we send our kids to a christian private school, well that and other reasons!!

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I went to a private Christian school myself Mike. I have to admit it was really tough to get laid there. :smilewinkgrin: That's a plus! :lmao:

Honestly Fayth was in a private school until last year. It cost between $800 and $1000 a month. Now that she's older and in elementary school, it's difficult to find any christian private school around here for less than $2k per month. We just don't have the extra cash to do that this year and don't expect to have our debts paid down and money for that for at least two more years.

Her public school is widely known as the best in the city. That's why we sent her there. But they send her home with shrines to obama, have her lecturing us about recycling, and other such nonsense while her scholastic learning is steadily decreasing.

Her attitude towards us is slowly getting worse and worse. Even a few days off from school changes her back to her normal self. But she is smarting off to us the way she sees other students smarting off to the teacher. This diminishes as she has time off from school. We noticed it last summer and again over the Thanksgiving holiday and now over Christmas.

Tony, if you would like to discuss this more I would be happy to give you my families perspective on home schooling. I have a 17yo senior that will be graduating this year and she has been home schooled since 1st grade. I also have a 16 yo sophmore that was home schooled until his freshmen year and he wanted to go to public school so he could participate in HS sports. In Texas UIL does not allow for home schooled kids to participate in school activities. He had never even put on a football helment and by the 5th game of the year he was playing varsity football as a freshman. He was also named to the homecoming court both years.

I don't believe he could have accomplised these without "social skills". Home schooling is just like anything else in life, you get out of it what you put into it.

The parents MUST be involved in the schooling process and the kids need to have outside networking avenues...ie sports, dance, music something that allows them the time to be around other kids.

Good luck on your decision.

I tried the homeschooling thing - I have the utmost respect for teachers. It's all a very difficult balance. The "bad" kids at school are a result of poor parenting and direction - the good kids suffer. We spend much of our time with our kids now explaining how they an avoid the bad that schools offer and how to focus on what will benefit them. Now, had I known about the fairly large Homeschooling network we have here, things may have been different - starting with a HS Sophomore didn't help either I'm sure.

The other thing you may want to explore Tony is a Charter School - they have public funding to a degree but they are choosy and run as if private. The waiting lists here are years - children have to apply and be accepted (even as early as kindergarten).

I wish you the best of luck in whatever your decision is for Fayth.

Tony,
My wife and I have home-schooled a varying number of our kids over the last five years. I think it has absolutely made a positive difference in their lives.

For those that contend they will be lacking the social skills: I ask you, you want them to develop the social skills Tony referenced above? Also, many studies have shown that home-schooled children are more active in worthwhile extra-curricular activities such as scouts. Additionally, my wife and kids go to a weekly "park day" with like-minded families and children to play with.

I contend that I have seen a lower percentage of socially challenged kids in the home-school circles than I have in traditional school environments. We all know the odd ones that sat in the back corner. The type that occasionally lead to Columbine style incidents. We also believe that the time spent with them has led to a much stronger parent/child relationship and we see our kids confiding in us and being closer to us than most of their peers are with their parents.

Also, there is no shortage of support available. Many homeschooling groups exist down by you. Many pre-packaged curriculum exist to make things easier on you. Or, you can pick and choose to best encourage your child's unique strengths and reenforce their weaknesses. If you like the standard curriculum, but want the flexibility to move faster and the freedom from the "bad" crowd, check out: http://k12.com/nvva/

Call me if you have any questions.

Thanks for all the responses. Brandon, I know what you are talking about with the social skills. Fayth has accompanied us on brochure sales calls, deliveries, you name it, since she was born. She was never withdrawn at all until she got to school. I know you hear all this talk about learning social skills, but you're right about the fact that the skills that are being learned are the wrong skills!

They are put in an environment where they are mentally beaten into submission while bored to tears. Like me as a child, Fayth is bored to death in school because the finishes everything WAY before most of the other kids. Then all she has to do is sit there and wait. And eventually get into trouble for fidgeting.

I'm going to have to go back and do some more study of the peaks of our society (United States and further back) to find out how children were taught during those peaks of genius that produced cures for diseases, breakthroughs and other discoveries that were monumental.

That's the kind of schooling I'd like to copy.

You will note that I said that I have seen some that were successful, because the families made sure that their kids had social interactions? I will admit that it would be nice to be able to be in control of who your kids associate with. Since so far I am two for two on National Merit Scholars, I like what has happened with our kids. Of course, as always, in any school situation, parental involvement is the most important. I have never found a teacher that has said anything different.

(Tony....hope you got my rambling message the other day, thanks again for your thoughts)

For girls, I'd say it is probably a great idea. I'd have a hard time wanting to home school a boy. Boys need to get beat up, picked on, get their pants yanked down, win some fights, learn to argue, thicken their skin, get in trouble for some sadistic pranks....the list goes on and on.

Would YOU guys have wanted to be home-schooled?

Honestly, I don't see home-schooling as being that much different than the whole "dodgeball game, except everyone is a winner--we don't keep score" stuff. You want to protect your kids from crap so you hide them in a big bubble. I say let your kids get out there and screw up, fail, get picked on because they are fat, etc. It is called "Life Preparation."

I could, however, see the benefits to sending your kid to an uber-rigid private school. Like the kind where the kids dress up, etc. Going to an all boys' school like that will def prepare you for success.

Lastly--and no offense Tony--but I'd rate having you as my primary history teacher as being only slightly better than having the obama-oral-sex-guy as my primary history teacher. Why? Because I'm only getting one side of the story either way. A kid needs to be challenged, and a kid doesn't need to be told what to think....he needs to get input at school, then have the parents put their own spin on that info. For me personally, I think you are going down the path of raising a robot. I know you are doing it with the best of intentions, but I think I'd get some outside input on this decision. Ask some successful bizmen that are older than you (more time to reflect) what they think.

My roommate my freshman year of college had been homeschooled, and he was one of the weirdest people I've ever met in my life.

Scott Stone said:

You will note that I said that I have seen some that were successful, because the families made sure that their kids had social interactions? I will admit that it would be nice to be able to be in control of who your kids associate with. Since so far I am two for two on National Merit Scholars, I like what has happened with our kids. Of course, as always, in any school situation, parental involvement is the most important. I have never found a teacher that has said anything different.

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I agree with Scott. Whatever your choice is parental involvement is crucial.

2 1/2 months into it and the homeschooling is going great. We aren't quite finished "unschooling" her yet. She's doing twice the social things she used too and usually does something with other homeschooled kids at least twice a week. We are working with other parents who homeschool their kids on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

"Unschooling" involves breaking the kid out of the subject-break-subject-break-subject type of learning that is crap and allows you to work with the child as long as the child keeps interest. For example multiplication was a week and a half alone - with no other "school" subjects to clutter the mind.

One week they played "store" where she had to sell things and learned to give back proper change quickly doing the math in her head and then she had to learn how to order things for the store and keep things in stock based on an elementary inventory system.

We also are teaching her practical things like this week she learned to sew. She did ALL the sewing on this "Bench/shoe hider" she and Shelly made ALL BY HERSELF after about a week of learning.

Hooray! We should have started this in the beginning!

Tony,
We home school our kids as well! They learn so much more than the public school can offer. Trust me its the best thing you can do for your kids these days with all the crap that the kids learn from the other kids in public arena. God bless and have faith they will be way better off in the long run. You get more time with the kids too!

This is a very interestng post!

innovativewash said:

Tony,
We home school our kids as well! They learn so much more than the public school can offer. Trust me its the best thing you can do for your kids these days with all the crap that the kids learn from the other kids in public arena. God bless and have faith they will be way better off in the long run. You get more time with the kids too!

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An added bonus is her attitude has changed tremendously for the better. Her mind is being challenged all the time now.

Im afraid of the same things with my daughter starting Kindergarten this year. Im determined to teach her she needs to think for herself and not consider what she is taught in school to be the final word. It is a sickening direction our educational system has taken. Our local teachers are good level headed people for the most part but they still have to teach the crap they are told too.