Does homeschooling mean we will be sick less?

[omishev]

On my list of pros and cons I listed "health" as a pro for homeschooling next year. We have been sick so much this year.

Nutrition. I KNOW nutrition will be better at home. My kids eat great at home, in the summer and prior to starting school and I do my best to pack the same things they would eat at home but they don't always have the time or desire to eat the healthier stuff at school. None of it is junk but they will often skip the veggies at school. Plus there are a zillion birthdays and special occasions at school that are accompanied by cake/candy etc. 

Sleep. They go to bed at a reasonable hour and I do not wake them up in the morning. So I am not currently limiting their sleep but I imagine as they get older and have more homework and other obligations they may need to be woken up to get ready for school before their bodies are done sleeping. I distinctly remember needing an alarm at least by 3rd grade, if not sooner. I do not want that for my kids. 

Outside Time/ Exercise. Some people say this is mixed because school has recess outside on days their own kids don't want to go out but I think overall we will have more time outside time, particularly when the weather is suitable. I am more than happy to drive them to the indoor pool or climbing gym when the weather is not good. 

Exposure. We are going to get out of the house and do group activities so they will still be exposed but my thought is it won't be as bad as at school and I can better enforce handwashing when we leave and before eating etc.

Thoughts??

 

 

[HomeAgain]

One of our benefits is being able to avoid gatherings when illness is going around.  My kids still get sick, but when they are we can take time to rest and recoup, not feel like if we have too many absences there will be truancy notes..we spent all of Nov with us sick back to back and it was okay.  We survived and didn't have to pass it on to anyone else.

[wathe]

Probably.

I expect the magnitude of the effect depends on age:  I'd guess that for really young kids the difference will be very noticeable.  Older kids probably less difference - they are better at keeping their germs to themselves.

Mine certainly seemed to be sick much less often than their brick and mortar schooled peers.

[Shoeless]

We don't seem to get sick as often as my niece and nephew that go to daycare and school.  But I've also met a lot of homeschoolers that roll their eyes over the suggestion they stay home with their sick children because mom is bored and/or thinks a cold is "no big deal".  Seasonal illness does seem to rip through the homeschool groups, just maybe not as often as in school. 

[moonflower]

Yes.  We hardly got sick at all when we were homeschooling.  Now they bring home everything!  Exposure has something to do with it but I think lack of sleep does too.  Hard to get enough sleep as public schoolers.

[shawthorne44]

I don't understand how public schooled kids get enough sleep.  Well, I guess an example might be my co-worker's kid who the co-worker says 'has no life'.  Homework, dinner and hygiene activities take up all his time between getting home on the school bus and bedtime.  But, the neighbor kid who is still playing with mine at 8:30 pm, and then is waiting for the bus at around 7 am.  He can't be getting be getting enough sleep.  
Of course, I think that if you need an alarm to wake up, then you aren't getting enough sleep.  They are OK as backup.  
 

[itsheresomewhere]

Probably not unless you don’t go to events/meet ups.   It is a massive pet peeve of mine on how the attitude has become “ we didn’t want to miss this/we were bored/mommy needed adult time” and show up sick to events. I get the not knowing ( child suddenly pukes after acting normal) but when you have a bad cold or flu, stay home.  

[klmama]

If they attend any activity with other kids, there's going to be exposure to illness, guaranteed.  Less frequently, perhaps, but it's still going to happen.  My dc caught most illnesses from church youth group and from homeschooled friends who showed up sick at get-togethers.

Edited February 20, 2019 by klmama

[Tanaqui]

You'll be less exposed to contagious illnesses, but that's a mixed blessing. For things like the regional versions of the sniffles, if you don't catch them now you'll catch them later.

[catz]

My kids homeschooled throughout and still got all the regular bugs kid got.  Including influenza A & B & H1N1.  Pink eye, ear infections, etc.  We've had good luck with the flu vaccine and are consistent with it now.  I also don't think it's healthy for immune normal people to be isolating themselves for extended periods time to avoid anyone else's germs.   My kids have always been involved with lots of activities outside the house.   We don't stay home for fever free upper respiratory stuff but we'll avoid friends with asthma, etc.  The whole upper midwest would be in quarantine for months every year if people did that.  

We have hardly been sick the past year and I credit the age of my kids and being better with hygeine/sharing germs, consistently getting a flu shot, and elderberry really does seem like it's doing something for us.  In fact the last time my son had the flu, I was not vaxed but DH and DD were.  I started elderberry and didn't get it.  I've started making my own.

Anyway - I don't really think that's a reason to homeschool unless you have a child with allergies, asthma, immune system problems, etc where you really do need to watch their exposure to things.    

[maize]

Well, my family gets sick constantly...my kids are in a lot of group activities though. And there are just a lot of us to potentially be exposed to stuff and being it home.

[Lady Marmalade]

I think recovery time is faster for my homeschooled kids when they pick up a bug.  They do limited school work when under the weather, take naps, sleep longer, take several showers a day if they feel up to it,  and we really ramp up the rest and nutrition.   A bug that takes their peers a week to get over goes in and out in 3-4 days. 

I think sleep is probably the biggest factor.  My teens set alarms when they need to be out of the house by a certain time.  Otherwise, they sleep until they feel rested.  There have been days DS doesn't appear until after 11:00 am, but he still gets his schoolwork done.  I'm so thankful we homeschool and I can allow him to sleep.  When he's going through a growth spurt he sleeps for 12 hours at a time sometimes.  He could never do that if he was in PS. 

[moonflower]

we didn't do many group activities while homeschooling (well, hardly any, really), which is part of why we put them in PS

if you go to church, co-op, sports, etc. you probably will still get lots of exposure

[BarbecueMom]

We stopped being sick so often when we stopped eating food other people prepared, including DH's lunches at work, and that is easier when they aren't eating in a school cafeteria or having class party food.  We don't do restaurants, takeout, pizza delivery, or potlucks. We rarely take food out of the house during flu season, but if we do, I try to time it where we are eating on the way somewhere and after we get home, instead of in the middle of our outing.  There are a few times of the year when we have to "break the rule" (team parties, trips, baseball doubleheaders, etc.), but it's pretty easy to stick to during the winter when the most bugs are going around.  We have lots of activities and sports and co-op classes and lessons and field trips, but cutting food out of the equation eliminated like 90% of the illness.  I doubt it would be as effective if they had to eat at least once a day at school.

[stephanier.1765]

The downside of not getting sick now is that they will get sick later. When my children first started getting into the work environment, they were sick all the time. It eventually evened out but it took several years until it did. 

[Guest]

I was going to say what @stephanier.1765 said. It did seem my kids did not get the colds/flu/stomach bugs of school kids in the earlier years (though it happened sometimes anyway), but when my firstborn did go to school in 9th grade, she caught every germ in existence. She seriously seemed to be sick throughout 9th grade. I think it was because she had not been naturally innoculated as well in earlier years. 

I have always thought the ability to sleep more naturally and less stressful rushing around in general were big perks of homeschooling and it is one feature I’m saddest to see depart when my youngest heads off to B&M school next year. 

Nutrition - eh, mixed bag on that. If you pack lunches for kids, you still influence their food choices a lot. In our family, dinner together almost every night, homemade food, has been the cornerstone of my kids developing fairly good eating habits, and this can happen no matter what schooling options are in play. 

Play outside - my older kids did get a lot of time outside but my youngest doesn’t now that it is only him at home. Even today, with a fresh carpet of snow outside, he hasn’t been out because, “It’s no fun to go out in the snow by yourself.” (And no, don’t look at me!) 

In summary, I do think hsing provides opportunities for better health and more health-supportive habits, including emotional and social health, but I have hsed so long now I feel as though I have seen every outcome, from homeschooling families all in robust health to homeschooling families who are walking balls of snot. Generalizing does not work. 

[Guest]

45 minutes ago, BarbecueMom said:

We stopped being sick so often when we stopped eating food other people prepared, including DH's lunches at work, and that is easier when they aren't eating in a school cafeteria or having class party food.  We don't do restaurants, takeout, pizza delivery, or potlucks. We rarely take food out of the house during flu season, but if we do, I try to time it where we are eating on the way somewhere and after we get home, instead of in the middle of our outing.  There are a few times of the year when we have to "break the rule" (team parties, trips, baseball doubleheaders, etc.), but it's pretty easy to stick to during the winter when the most bugs are going around.  We have lots of activities and sports and co-op classes and lessons and field trips, but cutting food out of the equation eliminated like 90% of the illness.  I doubt it would be as effective if they had to eat at least once a day at school.

What an interesting observation! 

[J-rap]

My kids seemed to get sick just as much when homeschooled as in public school, but they were always involved in group activities of some sort when homeschooled, or part-time jobs or what have you.  I couldn't justify making them live as hermits just to try and prevent sicknesses.

On the other hand, I love, love, loved that my kids were able to get all the sleep they needed when homeschooling in high school.  I don't know how the very busy public school kids keep up with everything on the sleep they get.

[Farrar]

I vote no unless you isolate yourselves. I do think it makes it easier to control if you have a child who has an issue with being immunocompromised or needs to limit exposure - I know a couple of families in that boat and they feel homeschooling has been part of the approach for them. But most people aren't being really proactive like that. Assuming you go on field trips and have friends, you'll probably get most of the things.

[lavender's green]

Health is a minor perk to homeschooling. I say minor because illness still goes on in homeschool groups and other places outside the house. Recently, I (the one who's anal about handwashing and hygiene, not my kids who lick handrails and get coughed on) was the one who brought a really nasty virus into the home. You just never know. And they'll be exposed to stuff eventually. Our first year of preschool was really bad. Someone was always sick because they had less previous exposure.

Sleep is king at our house, and my kids do get enough of it, but it's at the expense of other stuff. We only have 4 hours between the time school gets out and bed time. That's not much when we have to play (see below), get home, do homework, eat dinner, have some family time, bathe, etc. It feels so rushed, but I've just accepted that it's only four busy evenings a week that we have to get through.

Nutrition is slightly worse with all the snacks, special treats, reward candy, lunches that they'll actually eat, etc. When we homeschooled, we had so much more outside play time. We usually did it in the mornings when it's cooler and because this area gets lots of afternoon thunderstorms. When school started we just kind of maintained that play in the morning, rest in the afternoon schedule - except we weren't playing in the morning because they were in school. Kiddo gained a good bit of weight, which isn't all bad because usually he gains weight and then the weight suddenly turns into height, but still. I had to make physical activity happen, it didn't just happen through the course of our day anymore. I park a couple blocks away at pickup time, and we go to playgrounds for an hour or two, if it's at all possible. I'm hoping to get him into a school sport, too. I think a non-school sport would be too difficult to work into our schedule and still get to bed at a decent time.

[Arcadia]

Not for us since we still go for group sports lessons, activities, libraries and supermarkets. The only difference is we can recover at home if we are too sick to attend outside activities without having to worry about school attendance. My kids get seasonal allergies even at home as long as my patio door is slightly open. 

We have to make more effort to make PE happen. Their public school has a multipurpose hall for PE when it rains or is too hot. I live in a condo so we are kind of restricted to stretches, yoga (which my kids won’t do), sit-ups, push-ups for indoor exercise when weather is bad as we have upstairs and downstairs neighbors. My kids are happy to be sedentary 24/7 so we really have to get them to move around even if it is a less than 1 mile walk round trip to the supermarket.

[katilac]

I've been working at a small school for a few months and I think I might die, so I'm going to vote yes. 

[Carrie12345]

I only ever had 1 in school, so I don’t know that I can fairly compare. My best guess is that 1 kid at home might only be slightly reduced compared to at school. If my current 4 were in 4 different classes, I’d figure they’d have 4 times the pool of germs to pick up and bring home to one another.

Our reality is that they do get their fair share of germs. Some years are worse than others.

[Guest]

DD's pediatrician once commented that if all her patients homeschooled, she'd be out of business, but I suspect that has more to do with the fact that you CAN generally stay home and wait for a bug to pass on it's own, without requiring a note to miss school or work, so there's less reason to drag a sick kid to the doctor unless it's something that really needs a prescription.

 

[ScoutTN]

I think some of it depends on the relative strength of one's immune system too. We have friends who homeschool and are in most of the same activities we are, and fewer overall, but they are sick far more often than my kids.

My kids certainly do get sick, but somewhat less often than most traditionally schooled kids. My kids have each been on antibx only twice and that is a plus, imo. 

I do think more rest/sleep and the ability to stay home when sick make a difference. 

 

 

 

[wendyroo]

1 hour ago, dmmetler said:

DD's pediatrician once commented that if all her patients homeschooled, she'd be out of business, but I suspect that has more to do with the fact that you CAN generally stay home and wait for a bug to pass on it's own, without requiring a note to miss school or work, so there's less reason to drag a sick kid to the doctor unless it's something that really needs a prescription.

This is also our experience.  My kids do have a lot of out-of-the-house activities, so they are certainly exposed to germs, but they do tend to get sick less than the public schoolers we know and when they do get sick we can take all the time we need to recover.

There is, however, a huge downside to that.  If my kids were in school, and one got sick, then it wouldn't really disrupt the rest of their lives.  The healthy ones would still go to school like normal.  But with everyone home, and only one parent available during the day for taxi and childcare duties, one sick child can disrupt everyone's extracurriculars and other opportunities.  We can't go to the library or park or zoo or museum if one kid is too sick.  And with everyone home playing together all day, if one kids gets sick, almost inevitably the rest will follow, spaced just far enough apart that the sickness rules our lives for weeks on end.  And then, after tending to sick kids for weeks,  my immune system gets too run down and I get the illness, and all the kids are still at home, and healthier and bouncier and ready to go places...and I feel like death warmed over.

Wendy

[Pen]

For us: a clear Yes.   DC Illness went down to nearly zero when we homeschooled, up again when dc went back to brick and mortar school.  

A few illnesses were caught from activities during homeschooling time. Plus I have chronic illness either way, but didn’t have lots of contagious illnesses from dc on top of that when we homeschooled.

[shawthorne44]

I am thankful for a homeschool community.  People stay home when sick.  

[omishev]

3 hours ago, wendyroo said:

This is also our experience.  My kids do have a lot of out-of-the-house activities, so they are certainly exposed to germs, but they do tend to get sick less than the public schoolers we know and when they do get sick we can take all the time we need to recover.

There is, however, a huge downside to that.  If my kids were in school, and one got sick, then it wouldn't really disrupt the rest of their lives.  The healthy ones would still go to school like normal.  But with everyone home, and only one parent available during the day for taxi and childcare duties, one sick child can disrupt everyone's extracurriculars and other opportunities.  We can't go to the library or park or zoo or museum if one kid is too sick.  And with everyone home playing together all day, if one kids gets sick, almost inevitably the rest will follow, spaced just far enough apart that the sickness rules our lives for weeks on end.  And then, after tending to sick kids for weeks,  my immune system gets too run down and I get the illness, and all the kids are still at home, and healthier and bouncier and ready to go places...and I feel like death warmed over.

Wendy

OOoohh yeah, didn't think of that! We have all had the stomach bug this winter but it has been spread out over several weeks and we had to cancel gymnastics 3x because one kid was sick each week. When I get sick is when I wish I worked! I could call in sick, send the kids to school/daycare and go back to bed!

When one kid is sick do you ever want to purposely let the other kids get it so you can all get over it and move on with life?

 

[omishev]

20 hours ago, stephanier.1765 said:

The downside of not getting sick now is that they will get sick later. When my children first started getting into the work environment, they were sick all the time. It eventually evened out but it took several years until it did. 

This is completely selfish of me but at least when they are older they won't keep me up all night, get me sick and they can clean up their own puke! I do love them and take care of them when they are sick but I would like to do so less  it's been a rough winter!

 

[omishev]

21 hours ago, FuzzyCatz said:

My kids homeschooled throughout and still got all the regular bugs kid got.  Including influenza A & B & H1N1.  Pink eye, ear infections, etc.  We've had good luck with the flu vaccine and are consistent with it now.  I also don't think it's healthy for immune normal people to be isolating themselves for extended periods time to avoid anyone else's germs.   My kids have always been involved with lots of activities outside the house.   We don't stay home for fever free upper respiratory stuff but we'll avoid friends with asthma, etc.  The whole upper midwest would be in quarantine for months every year if people did that.  

We have hardly been sick the past year and I credit the age of my kids and being better with hygeine/sharing germs, consistently getting a flu shot, and elderberry really does seem like it's doing something for us.  In fact the last time my son had the flu, I was not vaxed but DH and DD were.  I started elderberry and didn't get it.  I've started making my own.

Anyway - I don't really think that's a reason to homeschool unless you have a child with allergies, asthma, immune system problems, etc where you really do need to watch their exposure to things.    

We will definitely be involved in activities outside the home. My hope is not to avoid exposure but to be able to fight it off better. We do elderberry as well! 

[Lori D.]

Well, we never had another round of pink-eye go through the house, once we brought DSs home to start homeschooling in grades 1 and 2... hallelujah! We must have gone through at least 3 different bouts of that (and some bouts involved 1 or more family members going through it twice) while DSs were going to the private school for pre-K / kinder / 1st grade. (:0

[Guest]

45 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

Well, we never had another round of pink-eye go through the house, once we brought DSs home to start homeschooling in grades 1 and 2... hallelujah! We must have gone through at least 3 different bouts of that (and some bouts involved 1 or more family members going through it twice) while DSs were going to the private school for pre-K / kinder / 1st grade. (:0

When I was young, I attended a very tiny private school. I never heard of pink eye until I went to public school in sixth grade and caught it. Other kids were like, “you have pink eye.” I was like, “Whaaaaaattttt?” 

We also never had lice until public school. My sister brought it home. 

(I’m not saying these things don’t exist in a private school; only that the sheer number of kids in public school meant that these things turned up only after we were all in big public schools.) 

[Catwoman]

2 hours ago, omishev said:

This is completely selfish of me but at least when they are older they won't keep me up all night, get me sick and they can clean up their own puke! I do love them and take care of them when they are sick but I would like to do so less  it's been a rough winter!

 

 

Hey! You got the big giant smiley in your post, too! It happened to me in another thread earlier today. 

I feel less alone now...

[Soror]

My friend started hs'ing partially due to her son having asthma and ending up in the hospital so much from every illness he brought home. They were able to avoid a lot of that by hs'ing and he did not end up in the hospital again. They ended up going back in PS years later but his immune system was stronger than and his asthma not so bad and he had a much easier time. So, it can help some but it depends on how active you are in the community and how well your friends keep their germs to themselves!

Edited February 21, 2019 by soror