Who here came to homeschooling by accident or used to be anti-homeschooling?

[beezus]

The idea of homeschooling never occurred to me when my dd was really young. When she was in early elementary school her dad underwent multiple rounds of cancer treatment, including a bone marrow transplant. Dd was really stressed and found it hard to focus at school with lots of disruptive, unruly kids in the classroom. At first I decided to do an online school with her. It was ok-ish, but that's when I started to think more about homeschooling. Doing the online school gave me the opportunity to be involved with what my dd was doing on a daily basis. (A big improvement over B&M school, where I never knew much about what she was doing in school, except for completed papers she brought home. Even when you asked a teacher, it seemed like they only gave you cursory information.) I realized we could do school ourselves without the assistance of somebody else designating the curriculum.

[laundrycrisis]

When DS1 was a baby I thought it was nuts. I also couldn't understand why anyone would want to give up a good salaried job with benefits to stay home with a baby, or refuse the protection of vaccines. Oh, and there were no difficult kids, just parents who didn't know how to set limits. I knew everything then ! :lol:

[PeacefulChaos]

I was originally anti homeschooling. DH and I both were.

I grew up going to PS. I loved it. I had an awesome school experience. We moved before middle school and the district we moved to had a wonderful school system. I did always know I was in one of the good ones, and that not all were like that. I had never really heard of homeschooling much. I assumed it was for people who were Amish. No one else. :tongue_smilie:

DH grew up going to really small private Christian schools...not the good kind. He knows that he didn't like the education he received - he didn't actually have a real classroom experience until he was in high school - before that, he sat in a cubicle by himself and sped through workbooks. He did ok in college but there were a couple things he didn't know, like how to write a book report, that he never asked because he felt so stupid for not knowing how to write one. :D

So due to my adamant love of PS and DH's not so positive opinion of his experience (though his parents were, in their defense, doing what they thought best for their boys at the time), we were 100% sending our kids to PS. I didn't see WHY anyone would homeschool - there are TEACHERS out there, people, who have DEGREES to teach kids! What on earth would make parents think they are qualified to teach their kids all they need to know!?

DS8 went to PS for 2 years - DS6 for 1 (pre-k). We didn't have a terrible PS experience - things just...shifted. In our lives, in us, etc. We went from adamant PSers to looking at 'well, I COULD hs if I HAD to' to 'I'm hsing the kids next year.'

The level of education that my kids will be getting is higher than they would get at the local PS system. It's an unfortunate truth. :( There are aspects of PS that I will miss them getting the opportunity to enjoy. But their education is paramount. And even in me, the attitude shifted a lot from I could do it to really WANTING to. I go into the story a little on my blog, on my About Me page.

[Paisley Hedgehog]

nm