Come share why you decided to homeschool.....

[kewb]

The initial reason: Trichotillomania

After 2 years of trying to rectify the bullying situation my son was experiencing the fact that my sweet ds spent all of 4th grade without eyelashes told dh and I that we needed to do something drastic. We were originally just going to do it for a year.

 

Why did we continue:

We decided we liked it. We loved that our dear sweet boy returned to us. By the end of 4th grade he was one angry young man. He was angry all the time. By the end of 5th grade he was happy.

 

We are also enjoying the benefits it has given our dd. In school she was always talking to her seat mates when she finished her work. At home we don't have that distraction. She is able to focus. We also like the fact that she is no longer part of the girl drama.

[Guest]

Another Aspie story: My daughter went to preschool two mornings a week, where she became electively mute and refused to use the toilets. Her teachers told me to keep her home for kindergarten, as it was important she needed to be able to talk to adults to go to school for a full day; and my daughter had a fit when we toured the kindergarten classroom anyway. We ended up having such a good time at home that we continued.

 

As she became older and was diagnosed, I was so glad I had her at home with me, so escaped all the problems of dealing with an unwilling, uneducated (!) school system and the bullying that often targets Aspie kids.

 

Bonus points: I have gotten an incredible education myself from working with her at home, equal in every sense to my institutional PhD.

[Hunter's Moon]

Next year I will be a Junior in high school and my parents and I have made the decision.

I go to an inner city school. They have many wonderful AP courses and programs BUT, like I said, inner city school.

In every single one of my classes, there is a kid who REFUSES to learn and that takes up class time. Plus, the teachers don't do much because, 1) they can't and 2) the whole inner city kid sympathy thing. I have always been an advanced learner and I absolutely LOVE learning. I could sit there for hours doing worksheet after worksheet.

 

Another reason that kind of pushed us along: I have had two surgeries so far for two different things and am going to require another surgery soon for another issue. Making up school work is just too hard and frustrating, especially in AP courses.

[Pretty in Pink]

Our oldest has a late birthday so he couldn't start kindergarten at 5 years old; however, he was already reading and doing simple math so we decided to give it a go that first year. I guess we figured that it would be impossible to screw it up in one year, ya know? At the end of that first year he was working at a solid 2nd grade level and we just couldn't see putting him in school so we kept home schooling. By the time the next one was ready for kindergarten, home schooling had become such a lifestyle for us that we didn't think twice. It's just what we do.:001_smile:

[Mom22ns]

My oldest is autistic spectrum (PDD-NOS) and highly gifted.

 

In lower elementary, that worked. The public schools provided all the therapies he needed and a wonderful nurturing environment. He came home and we worked with him. He got 18 hour/day stimulation. (He never slept more than 6, even as an infant)

 

When we hit middle school (our district runs it as an upper elementary), things fell apart. The social was nasty. The principal was a nightmare. The teachers didn't even bother to read his IEP. He was getting As and testing very high, they didn't want to acknowledge the difficulties autism was causing.

 

What really put me over the top was when he finally admitted how awful it was for him. When he told me what the isolation was like. I started researching homeschooling. DH was opposed, but when I told him I had to do it, he listened. He let me educate him and then our journey really began.

 

The next year dd couldn't stand to be left out any more and joined us. I don't know if she will stay home through high school, but I'm glad to have whatever time I can get with her. Homeschooling has been one of the many wonderful gifts autism has given us.

[Wheres Toto]

We kind of eased into it.

 

My son kind of flunked out of his first preschool when he was 2 1/2 (he's a quirky little fellow and they couldn't handle him). He ended up going to Early Invention at the public school for speech delays (and unspecified quirkiness). He improved very rapidly (at least his speech, he's still quirky but we love it) but they don't make an assessment on continuing the program until April/May and all the preschools in our area enroll in January/February. So, DH and I discussed it and decided that if he was not in EI again, we'd keep him home. We also ended up discussing how he'd be bored in preschool (he already knew all his letters, could count, was fascinated by letters and numbers) and he's not the type to sit quiet if he's bored.

 

After he was declassified and "graduated" EI they recommended he not come back for kindergarten until he was 6 (he has a late summer birthday). We decided that I'd try homeschooling him for pre-K (and maybe longer) to see how we did - did I have the patience to work with him, could I teach him without either of us going insane, could we keep his enthusiasm about learning, etc. Since he was turning 4 that Summer, we figured that gave me 2 years to try it out and see how it went. It's been less than a year and we've already decided that we will continue homeschooling at least until high school. We live in an excellent school district (one of top 5 high schools in the state) but we've decided that ds would not be best served in public elementary school - he's ahead already and in another year will be that much more, he's definitely a Visual Spatial learner (not a good fit for ps) and it seems some of his quirkiness could be due to sensory issues.

 

DH always felt strongly about having me home with our kids (I worked full time until my oldest- from a previous marriage- was 11 and have no desire to do that again). He was always bored in school and considered it a total waste of time. He feels homeschooling is a much better option to best teach a child at their level and to their interests. He also sees all that ds is learning (even when I feel nothing is getting through) because ds loves to tell him about things when dh gets home from work.

 

Surprisingly enough to me - both my mother and MIL have been supportive. Only a couple of people (extended family members) have expressed "concern" about our decision. Probably helps that I'm provisionally certified in Elementary Education so I don't get any of the "not qualified to teach" crap.

[LibraryLover]

 Doing our own thing, in our own time was out main motivator.

Edited September 15, 2014 by LibraryLover

[OnTheBrink]

Three words:

 

Chicago. Public. Schools.

 

DH has been in the system as a teacher for 18 years. The first real-life homeschooling parent we ever met was a colleague of his. Several other of his colleagues are homeschooling -- they won't even think of putting their own children into the system in which they work. And this is at one of the city's best schools, where students have to apply and be tested to get in.

 

We're homeschooling for as long as we can.

 

I hear you. Our state is somewhere around 42nd, 43rd in the US for education.

[cjbeach]

Academics, moving, kids who are accelerated, kids with issues, flexible schedules, we have a whole host of reasons.

 

Ditto!

I pulled my oldest out of K when my Aspie kiddo.stopped.sleeping.completely. It was 4 weeks from the end of the school year.

My county has a rating of 4 nationally. We thought we were moving home where our old town had a 9 rating for the state, 10 nationally (in NJ).

My dd's K class here last year was a scary social scene...for me. How can one teacher have 24 kids- some with issues. How could anyone, let alone a 5-6 yo, learn anything? I was overstimulated in her class. Sheesh.

My dh and his brother both have highly gifted IQs 165+ and both had horrible school experiences. My dh dropped out of high school at 16 and obtained a GED. My BIL is younger and has said time and time again how different his life would be NOW if he had been homeschooled.

Edited April 21, 2010 by cjbeach

[Paula in PA]

We had decided even before our dd was born that I would be a SAHM. I loved being with her every day and as the time drew closer and people started asking about preschool (and then of course kindergarten) I started to get this awful feeling inside. I saw an article (don't remember the mag) about hs, then found a book at the store (Homeschooling for Dummies) and I knew, just absolutely knew, this is what I wanted. I read through the book, started researching websites, ended up on the WTM (old) board, and finally bought the WTM book.

 

Homeschooling has felt like the right thing to do from the beginning for me. I had some issues with the public school system anyway and couldn't stand the thought of putting my little girl into it. My dh took some convincing (one of his arguments: What about the prom? :glare::tongue_smilie:) He actually came around because of the WTM method for history.

[jld]

A few days after we started dating, dh told me he wanted us to breastfeed and homeschool our kids. I took that as gospel, I guess.

 

Time and freedom are the key reasons I still do it, I think.

[LibraryLover]

interesting

[jld]

I was kind of surprised, but he seemed like a good guy and everything, lol.

 

It's funny, when we look back, at the decisions, the majorly important decisions we have made in life, and how we made them. I had only known dh 6 weeks when one day he told me he loved me. I thought we were just friends. But I took a day to think about it, decided he would be a good husband, father, and provider, and decided to accept his love. Then, yes, a few days later he made the breastfeeding and homeschooling remark. I remember thinking, "I guess this means we're getting married."

 

And a year later, we did!

[LibraryLover]

I was kind of surprised, but he seemed like a good guy and everything, lol.

 

It's funny, when we look back, at the decisions, the majorly important decisions we have made in life, and how we made them. I had only known dh 6 weeks when one day he told me he loved me. I thought we were just friends. But I took a day to think about it, decided he would be a good husband, father, and provider, and decided to accept his love. Then, yes, a few days later he made the breastfeeding and homeschooling remark. I remember thinking, "I guess this means we're getting married."

 

And a year later, we did!

 

 

LOL Sometimes it all works out.

 

[Angie in VA]

Well, first off, I knew too much from both sides of the desk! (I taught in ps) Mainly, I didn't trust the "theory du jour" for teaching reading, so I taught dd to read before she turned 5. Then I realized we already *were* homeschooling, so asked DH if we could do it officially. He said, yes! The rest is history! :)

 

We also love all the time we get to spend together! :) Love, love, love homeschooling!

[NanceXToo]

1. Because my daughter, at barely 5, was constantly losing her meager 15 minute recess for being too chatty in the Kindergarten classroom. Which might have been less of an issue to begin with if they got more than 15 lousy minutes for recess and weren't forced to sit through "silent lunches."

 

2. Because my daughter, at barely 6, was constantly losing her meager 15 minute recess for being too chatty in the 1st grade classroom AND got a "demerit" to boot, for the same reason (which prompted her coming home one day in tears- actual tears- saying "I g-g-got a demerit today, Mommy, and I don't know what that is (insert a sob here) but it's b-b-bad!"

 

Oh and she also got an "F" in math on her report card one period. Not because she didn't know the work- she did. But because of some incomplete papers, some of which were from when we were on vacation or she was out sick and she was not given the opportunity to make up the work. (The teacher didn't "have time" in class and wouldn't send them home because...I don't know why. Because I might have given my daughter the answers or something. <eyeroll>) And some of which were not fully completed in the classroom which at first her teacher said was because of talking too much. But when confronted with the fact that she was supposed to let me know if that had been a continuing problem and hadn't done so, leading me to believe that it had improved, she admitted that it wasn't JUST because of that, it was also because sometimes they had to draw illustrations to show their work and my daughter liked to make her illustrations very detailed which took up too much time, preventing her from finishing during "morning work" time. So sometimes she'd get a good grade on the side of the worksheet she'd completed but she'd get a big fat "0" on the second side which she may not have gotten to, and in the end, an "F" in math. For a first grader. Lovely.

 

3. Because my daughter, at barely 5 and 6 was spending full days pretty much chained to a desk in school and would bring home homework on top of that. I could see her childhood slipping away with her having no time to be a kid, no time to focus on her own interests, our family time being intruded on by school, too strong of an emphasis on academics (or should I say testing) and not enough on imagination, creation, free-play, art, music, gym, and even that all important "socialization." And on top of it all, school wasn't even a positive experience in those earliest years of learning. On the contrary, it was quite negative (see numbers 1 and 2) and I could easily foresee her love of learning being sucked out of her.

 

4. Because my daughter, at ages 7 and 8, was no longer losing recess in 2nd and 3rd grades but instead was getting stomach aches all the time and feeling stressed out because of the heavy emphasis on standardized testing. And frankly I was tired of the whole thing. It felt like our lives revolved around school. Getting up early, making a bus, her spending like 7 hours a day there, bringing home an hour's worth of homework, getting up the next day and doing it again. And all the while, there were budget cuts and teachers teaching to the test and too much pressure on the kids to score well- I wanted my child to be a child. Not a score.

 

5. Because despite all of this pressure and emphasis on testing, my district (and almost every district in the immediate area) scored HORRIBLY when it came to the standardized tests results anyway. They were below average pretty much across the board, in nearly every grade, every subject. So obviously their way wasn't even working so well to begin with. They had a bunch of stressed out kids who weren't even retaining what they were "learning" well enough to have the school come out "average" in all that standardized testing.

 

6. Because my daughter didn't get to spend a lot of time with her father, who, due to the nature of his business, works every Saturday and every afternoon until late evening (at or past the kids' bedtime) and they weren't seeing enough of him.

 

7. And because after all this I started reading up on homeschooling and read about how much better it is in so many ways and thought "This is what I need to do. This will be better."

 

So near the end of third grade I yanked her out of public school without even waiting for the school year to be officially over, started homeschooling her, and have continued into this year (we're just finishing up fourth grade now) and have loved nearly every minute of it. My only regret? Not doing it sooner. I wish I'd pulled her out of Kindergarten. Better yet, I wish I never sent her to Kindergarten. I won't make that mistake with my 4 y/o son- he'll be homeschooled right from the beginning :)

[MAMommy]

because I wanted my kids to be kids for as long as possible. The window is so small for them to be carefree & have fun. I didn't want them spending hours a day in a classroom memorizing hings I felt were useless. I wanted to make that last & homeschooling as given us just that.

[cdrumm4448]

For us it started for academic reasons. Catholic schools have a hard time differentiating education for anyone, let alone accelerated kids. I also didn't like some of the behavior that the schoolkids exhibited. My dh also works 12 hour swing shift, so sometimes we went days without seeing him. Now, we are considering hsing dd as well. She is finishing preschool, but is almost finished with Singapore Math K.

 

If we didn't homeschool, my son would never have had time to build a replica of Mt. Vesuvius in the sandbox, as he just did.

[nono]

When I decided to homeschool, I didn't even know if I was going to ever decide to be a mother!

 

First, I've had homeschoolers in my family, so it wasn't some big taboo issue.

 

But, for me, it was after another round of wasted time conducting team interviews and coming out the end with no one to hire, mostly because we couldn't find people to "think outside the box." At that point, I decided to homeschool. I figured I'd be saving someone like me in the future some time by providing talent back to the workforce that they might actually want to hire!

 

Funny, given that the whole "molding" of P.S. was originally to make folks more hireable. I still marvel that currently, more people haven't caught on that it does the opposite in many instances these days.

Edited April 21, 2010 by nono

[MomLovesClassics]

I was young and naive with my first and he went to public school. Truthfully at that time I was unaware about homeschooling. I was very displeased with the schools an often wished I could have done better for him. Dropping him off every morning, and picking him up every afternoon was time consuming, it took 2 hours out of my day. My middle child I sent to a local preschool, and he came home cursing, he learned to curse at preschool. I thought he would learn something, anything certainly not cursing. If he learned that at preschool, I wondered what would he learn at public school? Many if not most school systems in our state are horrible to put it mildly. I convinced my husband that we should homeschool the youngest two. I could not phantom the thought of their riding a school bus for 2 hours each day. Please do not get me started on school lunch, and what if I forgot to pack their lunch one day. I could not imagine my kids being fed food that I would not feed them at home. I like being able to pick and choose curriculum, and letting them learn at their own pace. The school system could not give them the kind of education I want them to have. I don't really like the cookie cutter way of public school systems. I don't like the idea of schools being put on lockdown while drug sniffing dogs search cars and lockers. That would traumatize me, why do I want to put my kids through that. The public school system is broken, and it is sad. Gosh I just have way too many reasons.

[Guest WrestlerMom]

It's really that simple...when our daughter was getting ready to enter kindergarten, we'd just moved back to VT from CA and my husband got to meet the K teacher in a "home visit" before the school year began. The teacher stayed for 2 hours, and spent the first 90 minutes reading every piece of paper she'd brought with her to my husband. Never asked to see our daughter's book collection, never asked her what kinds of things she liked to do or movies she liked to watch. The teacher hauled out a book about spiders that she'd brought with her, and when Mo asked to read it to the teacher, the woman refused, saying "no, dear, I brought it to read to YOU." *blink* That was our "light-blub moment."

 

Hubby never did get another job outside the house; after that, we decided he would put his college degree and teaching experience (special ed aide, substitute teaching) to work at home. Now we have two kids, daughter is in 7th grade, and she can fit right in with any age group from infant to senior citizen. Our little man is in kindergarten now, and his big sister is his main teacher! That's part of her schooling, learning to teach.

 

We love home school, we've never looked back!

[nono]

Hey, I liked my original answer. (post 69)

 

Today, I was thinking, "Because I'm an overeducated egomaniac." :lol: (I guess I'm being a bit hard on myself today!)

[usetoschool]

I had some friends who homeschooled and I admired them and their children. Did send my first to kindergarten and even with the new teacher of the year as her teacher she didn't learn anything but how to sight read a little and do a bunch of projects. I spent a lot of time undoing the word guessing and never looked back. I wanted my kids to be close and spend time together. And I believed I could do a better job. Even though I was in accelerated programs beginning in 5th grade, when they created the program, I had a terrible education and I think we did do better. I also wasn't interested in the social nonsense that goes on in school or the intrusion of the school district into our family. I also liked the freedom and choice it gave us to pick what and when we studied and to take trips and go to museums and explore the world. I think the only reason I couldn't check off on a poll is religious.

[chepyl]

I saw what my dance students were doing in school and heard about everything going on the ps system where we lived when DS was born. The schools were awful. They put the kids in block scheduling in 5th grade - 10 year olds sitting in class for 90 minutes at a time. The kids also shared how their teachers would give them the answers to the state tests, so the teachers would not look bad :glare:

 

I knew I would homeschool if we still lived there when the time came.

 

We moved "home" and bought a house in a good district. DS missedt he cutoff for K last year by 3 weeks. He was already reading at a 2nd grade level, and had worked up to 2 digit addition with regrouping. They would make no exceptions, if he went to school he would be in pre-k learning his letters and numbers. I decided to homeschool kindergarten. If I screwed up, he could always do K again this year in PS. It went great, we all loved it. DS excelled. There is no way I would put him in PS right now. He wants to stay home through high school. I am fine with that :D. We are, however, taking it a year at a time.

[Jennifer3141]

DH works really long hours and we realized that school would mean there would be no more wrestling at midnight with Daddy when he came home. And then we visited our local private school and I just twitched through the entire tour. There was no way in heck I'd ever do public school so we came to HS though a quick process of elimination.