25 Reasons to Homeschool

[laughing lioness]

I've read several lists lately about "why we homeschool." Most of them seem to be written by parents whose kids are no older than middle school. I'd love to hear some reasons from those with older kids/adults.

 

What are your top 25 reasons for homeschooling now that your kids are reaching/have reached adulthood?

[regentrude]

I don't have 25 reasons, just one:

to provide my children with the rigorous academics they need to be challenged, because they can not have this in public school. I probably would not homeschool if we had a school available where they work at the academic level they are capable of.

[angela in ohio]

There's no way I can come up wtih 25, but here goes - in no particular order:

 

So that dh and I can be the primary influences in their life.

 

So that they have time to develop their own passions and interests.

 

So that they can receive an education based on the classical model.

 

So that they have time to pursue both the arts and academics fully.

 

So that they are not influenced by commercialism, peer pressure, and other organized influences in public school (I won't get political... ;))

 

So that they can have the time to know each other as friends.

 

So that the girls can feel free to excel in math and science.

 

So that the boy can feel free to excel in the humanities and arts.

 

So that I can spend time teaching them things we value: to put others first, to repsect authority and their elders, to have manners, and so on.

 

So that I can create a passion for learning and curiosity.

 

So that we can protect their work ethic.

 

So that they learn our view of health, nutrition, and mental well-being and not one we disagree with.

 

This comes from a place of having good options - a nice public school and some decent private schools. My middle even goes part time to the public school. So for me, it is about how they spend the majority of their time and who directs their education. I want to be at the wheel, and we want to have the most influence. The schools aren't bad, they just don't have the same priorities and goals that we have.

Edited September 12, 2012 by angela in ohio

[JennW in SoCal]

What are your top 25 reasons for homeschooling now that your kids are reaching/have reached adulthood?

 

Now that I'm done and am looking back, I am most grateful for:

 

All the years of sharing books (and plays and movies):

Some of my fondest memories are of reading aloud, and not just when they were little, but even when they were lanky teens. The discussions we'd have were priceless as it gave me such an insight into their growing minds. I love that my youngest nags me to read books he loves and impatiently waits for me to read them. I love that he has texted me about what he is reading because he still has to share even though he is 3 time zones away.

 

All the time they had to explore their interests:

They explored their talents and figured out what they enjoyed and didn't enjoy. Through working with adult mentors they learned to have a good work ethic and came to understand the value of a good education. Through seeing their age peers in action either at volunteer work, paid work or in college classrooms they came to appreciate homeschooling. My kids see themselves as free of all the peer pressure and drama that seems part and parcel of brick and mortar high schools, see themselves better prepared for college discussions and for the adult work-world.

 

The ability to adapt school to meet their learning styles:

I started homeschooling because of my oldest's learning challenges. He still has the same challenges, but he is aware of them, knows he isn't stupid but needs to work a little harder, needs to turn for help, in order to get through certain subjects. In a program where a good half of the students fail at least one course, if not drop out all together, he is thriving and has not failed any of the weed out courses.

 

Can't come up with 22 others -- especially at the moment with my puppy trying to destroy the house while waiting for her morning walk!!

[Leanna Tomlinson]

Since I've graduated three, here are reasons I'm glad I homeschooled them through high school:

 

They were never overly tied to a peer group, so they avoid "group think" and following others blindly.

 

They had a chance to work on college classes while in high school, so they have time to pursue additional minors in college.

 

When they left home, I was grateful for all of the time we had together.

 

They are all aware of how to care for a household/yard/children etc. and have learned flexibility in dealing with these matters while accomplishing school work.

 

I was able to tailor their high school classes to match their abilities and future college plans.

 

My dc had healthier diets because we were eating at home most of the time.

 

We were able to deal with health issues without the stress of an unbending school schedule.

 

My dc had healthy relationships with their younger siblings.

 

We loved learning together, and we had hours of worthwhile discussions that helped to form their worldview (and refined mine as well).

 

They became lifelong independent learners who have a healthy amount of curiosity.

 

They were eager to dive into college academics and were not burned out or jaded by educational institutions.

 

They easily relate to people of all ages and find college a little odd because everyone is the same age.

 

I'm glad that my dc could carry a rigorous academic load and still have time for other pursuits.

 

 

For my dc still at home:

 

I'm glad that my two dyslexic children can work at the pace necessary for learning and retention.

 

I'm glad these two dc do not have to deal with the ramifications of being "behind" in the classroom.

 

 

Most importantly:

 

I'm glad my children received an education that was in harmony with our faith.

 

I'm thankful that each one of my children have embraced our faith as their own.

[Karen in CO]

So that they grow up knowing it is okay to be smart and funny.

 

So they they can develop a strong sense who they are.

[Lori D.]

LOVE everyone's answers! Especially like Jenn, it's about the relationship we now have with our young adults that was built on homeschooling through high school. Below is my extended answer. ;) Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

 

Did you mean:

"Now that you've graduated some of your children from homeschool high school, looking back, what would you say the benefits of homeschooling through high school were?" We just graduated our second from homeschool high school (12 years!), having started homeschooling 2 DSs in grades 1 and 2. In retrospect, here were our reasons/the benefits:

 

- obedience to God's calling to our family to homeschool

 

- allowed us to develop a close, mutually loving/supportive relationship all through growing up, teen years, as young adults

 

- better able to address student's learning disabilities

 

- ability to gear the academics precisely to each student's ability

 

- dad able to be more involved in children's lives and education

 

- relationship, relationship, relationship

 

- experience of learning/discovering together

 

- allowed students to pursue some unusual interests

 

- ability to be involved in extracurriculars that built friendships and leadership qualities

(if they had been in a traditional school setting, the hours and homework would have probably prevented them from also having the time and energy to be involved in extracurriculars)

 

- developed ability to interact (socialize!) comfortably with people of any age

(one DS would have very likely fallen into the classroom mentality of "only interact with those of same age")

 

- avoided the negative social aspects of brick-and-mortar high school

(peer pressure, taunting, gossip, temptations to early sex, drinking, smoking, and drug use, etc.)

 

- shared incredible conversations together

 

- take advantage of teachable moments

 

- opportunity to set our own schedule and take some wonderful extended trips during the school year

 

- ability to "try out college" early, with dual enrollment classes that let them be responsible, learn classroom/homework scheduling skills, AND counted for credit for college

 

- did I mention the wonderful, close, loving relationship?!

 

 

These past threads are WAY worth reading, as they give answers to your question, too:

Why homeschool high school?

Please tell me again all the reasons why I should homeschool high school

Aside from academics … what are the benefits from homeschooling high school

What are you glad you did with your high school students?

Edited September 12, 2012 by Lori D.

[quark]

Now that I'm done and am looking back, I am most grateful for:

 

All the years of sharing books (and plays and movies):

Some of my fondest memories are of reading aloud, and not just when they were little, but even when they were lanky teens. The discussions we'd have were priceless as it gave me such an insight into their growing minds. I love that my youngest nags me to read books he loves and impatiently waits for me to read them. I love that he has texted me about what he is reading because he still has to share even though he is 3 time zones away.

 

All the time they had to explore their interests:

They explored their talents and figured out what they enjoyed and didn't enjoy. Through working with adult mentors they learned to have a good work ethic and came to understand the value of a good education. Through seeing their age peers in action either at volunteer work, paid work or in college classrooms they came to appreciate homeschooling. My kids see themselves as free of all the peer pressure and drama that seems part and parcel of brick and mortar high schools, see themselves better prepared for college discussions and for the adult work-world.

 

The ability to adapt school to meet their learning styles:

I started homeschooling because of my oldest's learning challenges. He still has the same challenges, but he is aware of them, knows he isn't stupid but needs to work a little harder, needs to turn for help, in order to get through certain subjects. In a program where a good half of the students fail at least one course, if not drop out all together, he is thriving and has not failed any of the weed out courses.

 

Can't come up with 22 others -- especially at the moment with my puppy trying to destroy the house while waiting for her morning walk!!

 

I love all of this. Makes every challenging day worth it to read something like this. I'm going to bookmark it for whenever I question why I bother to homeschool. Thank you!

[Jane in NC]

My reasons to homeschool highschool:

 

--To be able to choose curricular materials that meet the high school student's needs

 

--To be able to continue the "Great Conversation" via great books

 

--To be able to offer hands on learning opportunties unavailable in traditional education (sewing, cooking, carpentry, electronics, etc.)

 

--To be able to travel (unless one is tethered by dual enrollment or co-ops)

 

--To have the time (whether in the car or at lunch) to talk about books, issues, ideas

 

--To emphasize that self education is a life long process and to demonstrate that I am learning along with my kid

 

--To be able to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves (like archaeological field schools or 4-H ski trips)

 

--To be able to rewrite the script on days when my kid just doesn't feel well or finds himself occupied with big ideas or maybe just needs sleep because of a growth spurt

 

No regrets from my son, my husband or me. There are far more pluses than minuses to home schooling the high school years in my book.

[Susan of Croton]

To all who posted, and to Lori D. who linked to past posts: Thank you. Next year, my hs journey will begin with my dcs, and I woke up early today with my first thought being, "Can we do this?" closely followed by "What on earth am I thinking?"

 

I have learned to rely on you experienced tillers of the high school waves for reassurance, and so found it.

 

For us looking ahead, and imagining a good reason to continue homeschooling, I would add that being able to visit with elderly parents in a far away state at convenient times would be a top reason to continue. If my kids were enrolled, we would not be able to visit except for a few days at the holidays. There would be too much pressure to cram in the visit during the school-mandated times, and if someone had a cold, we might miss the visit altogether!!!

 

I was reflecting that my ps experience separated me from my grandparents when I was young, even though they lived close to us. We were only able to visit for lunch on Sunday. It's hard to get into the flow of life and family when you only make relatively formal, short visits!

 

Since grandparents walk with us only a short time, it's literallly now or never, and I can't live with never. That would be cruel to all of us. Literally, then, knitting up the ravelled sleeve of a far-flung family would be for me a top reason to keep a pluggin' away.:auto:

[Nan in Mass]

LOL - Are you writing an article? Or is this for your own encouragement?

 

As usual, my family is a bit different...

 

Our excellent public school system would give my children a far better academic education than I can at home. Every week I see examples of this. My husband and I discovered the hard way, though, that an excellent academic education is actually fairly far down on our list of priorities. An excellent education is not very useful to a person who has become dulled-down and apathetic in the process of being educated. And that aside, it turns out that we would gladly trade academic excellence for academic adequacy plus tons of time with the grandparents. When you add in a chance to develop some interests, to spend more time outside being active, to spend more time creating things and developing practical skills, to travel, to try to save the world and meet others who are also doing so, to choose their own mentors, to create their own education, to develop the creativity necessary to deal with the resulting gaps, and freedom from the results of the exponential growth of stupidity when bored teenagers are cooped up together in close quarters, you get something pretty special, something which to our family is worth more than excellent academics alone. There are advantages both to homeschooling and not homeschooling, but for our family, homeschooling is better.

 

(I don't mean to imply that you can't have both an excellent academic education AND homeschool. Or that you can't go to school AND have some of the things I listed. I just know that in my particular family, it wasn't practical to do everything. We had to make choices. Grampa or Latin? Travel or a longer literature list?)

 

(Adequate academics defined GRIN - Able to learn from books, able to continue one's education throughout life, starting with being able to get into and do well at a good college, etc. Thinking Science News is a fun magazine comes into it somewhere, also LOL, and being able to converse with intelligent people everywhere. And other things...)

 

Nan

Edited September 13, 2012 by Nan in Mass

[Jane in NC]

LOL - Are you writing an article? Or is this for your own encouragement?

 

As usual, my family is a bit different...

 

Our excellent public school system would give my children a far better academic education than I can at home. Every week I see examples of this. My husband and I discovered the hard way, though, that an excellent academic education is actually fairly far down on our list of priorities. An excellent education is not very useful to a person who has become dulled-down and apathetic in the process of being educated. And that aside, it turns out that we would gladly trade academic excellence for academic adequacy plus tons of time with the grandparents. When you add in a chance to develop some interests, to spend more time outside being active, to spend more time creating things and developing practical skills, to travel, to try to save the world and meet others who are also doing so, to choose their own mentors, to create their own education, to develop the creativity necessary to deal with the resulting gaps, and freedom from the results of the exponential growth of stupidity when bored teenagers are cooped up together in close quarters, you get something pretty special, something to our family is worth more than excellent academics alone. There are advantages both to homeschooling and not homeschooling, but for our family, homeschooling is better.

 

(I don't mean to imply that you can't have both an excellent academic education AND homeschool. Or that you can't go to school AND have some of the things I listed. I just know that in my particular family, it wasn't practical to do everything. We had to make choices. Grampa or Latin? Travel or a longer literature list?)

 

Nan

 

Mentors! Yes, traditionally schooled kids may find them but having flexibility to work around another person's schedule is useful.

 

Thought of another reason: Laughter! If your teen is in a B&M all day, you will miss many of the impossibly unbelievable things that a teen does. Like when a growing boy's center of gravity changes so quickly he can barely walk across the room without damaging himself. Or when he starts parsing letters to the editor in the morning newspaper (since he does not have to catch a 6:30 AM school bus he has the time to do this ;)) Our school day was filled with much loud laughter.

[MicheleinMN]

My list is a short one...

 

So my children will read books that they would never read otherwise.

[laughing lioness]

LOL - Are you writing an article? Or is this for your own encouragement?

 

Nan

 

My own encouragement. I keep reading these very peppy reasons from people whose kids are younger and I guess I'm cynical and old. It's been a long couple of years in my life and I am feeling so discouraged about what we can do for our kids $ wise/ college wise /braces wise- petty on one level and profound on another.....and the choices our older kids are making. They are such "good" people- really; kind, moral, just, generous. But they don't really see the value of higher ed (!?!?!?) and aren't really "high" performing. Not that that's all bad. I just feel...well, generally, bleh. And wondering if my not working is really, really worth it. Plus, the house project is just unremitting. What we get done looks great, but it's taking a toll. My fingers will forever be 3 sizes bigger than they were 3 yrs ago. I'm tired.

 

And I am loving the answers and am going to print them out because you all are really my heros.

[SailorMom]

Well - the big ones off the top of my head:

 

*the ability to read good books

*the ability to learn without having to deal with the FCAT

*the ability to accommodate DS's LDs while still giving him an in-depth, challenging learning environment

*the ability to put more focus on history and the sciences

*not having to deal with the school's sometimes ridiculous rules....

*the ability to keep as much bias as possible out of education

*scheduling flexibility

*the ability to place more emphasis on critical thinking skills

[justamouse]

Even though my Ds21 is out on his own, and Dd17 is in PS, the basis of our relationship-the fact that we have a strong family culture, shared priorities, that we respect each other, is from the days of homeschooling.

 

Now, that doesn't look like anything different than perhaps good parenting for PS kids, and that could be right, but what is different is that we have more shared memories, good ones, from all of the hours I spent with them. That investment of time and love is transcendent. It can't be qualified, which is why we can feel wishy washy about it all, especially when PS and society is all about qualifying.

 

They are growing up to be excellent people. If all else fails, and they have an upstanding character, it's a win.

 

:grouphug:

[SonshineLearner]

Wow, nice to read some of these :) Laughing Lioness, as you probably realize, I've always loved looking at what you're doing! I'd love you to have a school for others :)

I was homeschooled, I have older girls who are in Public School. My youngest is 9yrs old and I feel old and ragged, often!

His reason for being homeschooled and having NO interest in being in a building with teachers and play/school mates is simple. When asked why he doesn't want to go to school and be with others, he's said, "Because they tell you what to do all day" He has no desire to walk someone else's path.

I am... forever... probably homeschooling. I continually lust for him to be in school, while knowing it most likely can't happen, because it would squish him.

He has promised that he will most likely go away to college, because he wants to study Robotics and doesn't think I'll do a good job at that.

I like reading these posts because it reminds me that there are others homeschooling, too. And that personal time/careers and Master Teachers can wait... even if I want it/them now!

[JadeOrchidSong]

To share the joy of learning.

[BlsdMama]

I've read several lists lately about "why we homeschool." Most of them seem to be written by parents whose kids are no older than middle school. I'd love to hear some reasons from those with older kids/adults.

 

What are your top 25 reasons for homeschooling now that your kids are reaching/have reached adulthood?

 

1. They're finally really interesting?

 

I like my little kids, I like my middles. But, why in the world, after ALL this WORK, would I send them off for someone else to enjoy and teach them all the really interesting stuff?????

 

 

I deserve to get to teach high school after the first nine years of teaching the more tedious stuff. :P

[BlsdMama]

 

moral, just, generous.

 

 

Those are three pretty stellar reasons right there. ;)

[Nan in Mass]

I've seen some idealistic sounding lists from people who haven't yet weathered the teens, too. Looking back, I definately have regrets, but so far the regrets have been more along the lines of not doing enough of this or that. Overall, I think that for us, it built better adults. I remember how much it hurt when oldest decided not to go to college. Even though he had a good alternate plan, it still was a blow. (Later, he decided he would like to go, but I had to get used to the idea of that particular type of college...) I think we all have things we would wish we could give our children. I think there is a large batch of academic middling students who if placed in a very expensive small LAC would do well, but who (perhaps wisely) decline even to try the college options that are open to them. Unfortunately, it seems as though by emphasizing a non-judgemental, more global, more non-materialistic set of values, one of the results is that it is no longer possible to emphasize an academic education as much as one might wish. It also seems as though in teaching our children how to educate themselves and repeating over and over that they are responsible for their own education, we make it more possible for them not to choose college. At least, that is what I have seen so far in my own children. It looks like all three of mine will wind up having gone to college, but they were doubtful about going just for a degree; they needed to have a career goal that required it. I'm sure I'm just making things worse... Are you getting enough sunlight? I find that going from full summer mostly outdoors to homeschooling, the abrupt change in sunlight level makes me abnormally gloomy. Sometimes, when I am feeling discouraged about homeschooling, I think up cases of educated people who aren't good people. It isn't very kind, perhaps, but it occasionally makes me feel better. Do you have any part of your house that doesn't make you feel guilty to retreat to?

 

Hugs,

Nan

[jibaker103]

For me it is about spending time with my kids and making memories. We only have one shot at raising our kids and I would like to spend it getting to know them, helping them through their growing pains, and watching them come out the other side confident and stronger in their confidence, values, morals, ethics, etc. I also like tailoring their academics to enhance their strengths and improve on their weaknesses in a manner that suits them.