S/O of adults making comments, have other children said hurtful things

[Outdoorsy Type]

to your children about homeschooling?

 

Last night we were at a church event where a little girl said quite loudly to my 7 and 9yo "I go to ** school. It's a *real* school. I'm glad I don't have to be home schooled.

 

Obviously, it's how she feels, and that's fine. She really loves her school, and that's a good thing. I'm just maybe a bit worried my children will begin to feel like they aren't really doing "school". They have also had comments from the PS neighbors about home school not being "real".

 

How do you/your children handle this? :bigear:

[Ellie]

A little girl at church said to my 9yo dd, "You must be really stupid and that's why your mother homeschools you."

 

Yeah.

[Julie in CA]

It's time to teach your dc to {shrug}.

 

There's no reason to let other people's ill-informed comments hurt your feelings, and that's what I'd tell my dc. They need a few ways to answer to those comments though, and you might want to help them think that through ahead of time.

 

When my dc were in middle school, one of their favorites was, "Yeah, it's really a bummer that I get to do my algebra in my jammies, while listening to my iPod. I don't even get that fun bus ride very day, and it really stinks that I can get all of my work done before lunchtime, and then go to the movies rather than sitting through another boring lecture. You're so lucky!!" {and then a shrug and a wry grin}

 

ETA: When my kids were little, I faintly remember taking them to the park to play in the mornings while it was cool, and waving to the kids on the buses as they went by. We shared lots of big smiles about the fact that we were at the park, while they had to be cooped up all day. Then we went home and finished schoolwork in record time.

[kewb]

The neighbor children have repeatedly told mine that they will never be able to get into college if they don't go back to real school.

 

Now they just shrug their shoulders at it and move on.

[curlylocks]

This past spring, our church was organizing a banquet for graduating seniors.

 

A mother of one of the other teens said, "Homeschoolers shouldn't be invited to the banquet -- only kids that go to real school should be invited." :glare:

 

You will hear a lot of stupid things -- the longer you homeschool, the more you will hear. Sometimes it is just that people don't understand homeschooling -- other times it is just plain "meanness". (either way ignore it)

[Puma Mom]

It might be time to do a study about all the different ways people have been and are educated. Perhaps if your dd has some facts under her belt about all the people that have been homeschooled (whether or not it was called that) and how public school is a fairly new phenomenon, she will be able to either respond ("It's really sad that your 'real' school doesn't allow you to learn as an individual like mine does.") or be confident enough to blow the other one off.

 

 

A little girl at church said to my 9yo dd, "You must be really stupid and that's why your mother homeschools you."

 

Yeah.

Ds18 always got the opposite: "Wow, you must be really smart to do that." That was just about as confusing as the assumption that he must be stupid.

[Mrs Twain]

Two of my kids have been in the "real school" that you mention where they learned little or nothing. I explain to them that one of the reasons we homeschool is because the ps won't challenge them or teach them enough. Specifically, I tell them that the ps math program is one year behind where they should be. I tell them what they are learning in math compared to what the kids in the ps down the street are learning in math. (Unfortunately, my son repeated that one to the neighbors!)

 

Private schools vary, so I could imagine that kids who go to one of these might tout their school. We don't know a lot of kids in private school, though.

 

My oldest who is very outgoing actually tells his friends how great homeschooling is. He tries to recruit them to do homeschooling, too. More than once I have heard his friends ask their mothers if they would homeschool instead of ps.

 

If a kid said something to my kids about them not going to real school or similar, I think my kids would recognize it as nonsense. My kids know that they work very hard every day to complete all of their work. We definitely have a "real" school! Maybe if you prepare you kids in advance for those kinds of comments, they will see through them.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

My kids have already gone to "real" school, and they know how lucky they are, so the few times other kids have said anything to them, they respond that they never want to go back to school!

[Avila]

to your children about homeschooling?

 

Last night we were at a church event where a little girl said quite loudly to my 7 and 9yo "I go to ** school. It's a *real* school. I'm glad I don't have to be home schooled.

 

Obviously, it's how she feels, and that's fine. She really loves her school, and that's a good thing. I'm just maybe a bit worried my children will begin to feel like they aren't really doing "school". They have also had comments from the PS neighbors about home school not being "real".

 

How do you/your children handle this? :bigear:

 

You know, rude is just rude, no matter what it is about. If this girl wasn't offering her opinion about homeschooling, she would likely be telling you how her family makes better choices than yours with clothing purchases, vacations, toys, etc. She is most likely hearing those opinions from an insecure adult in her life who spends her own time comparing all her choices against those of everyone around her.

 

We handle this the way we do all rude remarks. If I am standing there, I might tell the little girl that what she said was not a very nice thing to say and walk away. My kids might say, "Have you ever been home schooled? Well then, how would you know anything about it?" Honestly we usually find that one nip by these people is more than enough and that ignoring them and avoiding them is usually for the best, because if they don't have enough socialization to know better than to make rude comments to strangers, nothing we would say would likely change that.

[bairnmama]

My dd has some fairly severe learning disabilities. One of her friends last year basically told her that she wouldn't be having so much trouble or be so far behind if she went to "real school". Thing is, I took dd out of that same "real school" because she was having so many troubles and issues that weren't being addressed. I was just told to work more with her at home on the basics - after completing all the homework. I figured if I was needing to teach her all that stuff anyway after school, I might as well be doing it myself during school hours.

 

Of course it doesn't help that this friend is in all G/T programs, in the chess club, doing all the extra credit, etc. Learning comes very easily to her and she doesn't understand my dd's struggles.