What homeschooling trends have you seen come and go?

[ieta_cassiopeia]

I think a lot of people want to send children to school, but not to the state's school. This is happening quite a bit where I live, because 2-3% of children were "invited to leave" school by schools that didn't want an expulsion mark on their records but decided that illegally requiring parents to off-roll students without actually expelling them was desirable for some reason. There are also a few parents - not many, but a few - who are withdrawing students because the cost of sending the students to school is prohibitive (the additional cost of discount homeschooling* is now cheaper than some state schools' uniform fees, let alone the other associated costs of school). This is leading to a lot of parents being forced into homeschooling, often with no warning, no idea of what's out there and no true desire to homeschool.

 

* - Discount homeschooling - asking students to use existing books plus an existing internet connection (perhaps through the family mobile phone, which may well be shared between all the students) to self-study the three Rs plus anything else the parents feel like setting or that interests the child. Parents deliberately avoid registration and oversight Parents typically have the students sit minimalist qualifications at college when old enough to get free taught courses in those subjects, if they haven't managed to get to a point where they can pay for the child to return to school yet. Parents typically don't consider this until students are 11, to make sure they've learned to read to at least some degree first. In fairness, most of the families I'm seeing doing this now also have a parent available to supervise due to health preventing them from working, but this is often more supervision and occasional assistance (as if the parent was a ) than teaching or active facilitation.
 

These people typically do not attend or seek homeschool groups because they don't think they could be welcomed - after all, they think they are full of people who are homeschooling on purpose and to a plan deeper than "get this child some sort of education, however possible". Whereas these parents would send their children to school the moment that became possible, even if the school was of a quality that most deliberate homeschoolers would reject under most circumstances. The reality of those groups ends up not being relevant because these people don't accept themselves as homeschoolers, rather "not-school-schoolers".

 

The way the UK records (or doesn't record) homeschooling numbers means it's impossible to be completely sure what proportion of homeschoolers even want to homeschool in the first place, only that the number is way up and that a significant portion would rather a school took their child but either cannot get a school to accept them (despite this being a legal requirement) or the school/college on offer is believed to be worse than no school at all (with varying levels of merit in the idea). As you can probably guess, this is leading to a lot of "school at home". Not because it's a phase to be worked through while finding a better way to homeschool, but to hopefully reduce the shock on what is hoped to be the inevitable return to school. Parents are finding more resources to do this than ever, including easy purchase of every single textbook the local school of one's choice uses and the ability to trust students to have the knowledge to find further explanations on the internet instead of being totally reliant on tutors. People less concerned about legalities using set-ups that increasingly resemble the arrangements @Mrs Tiggywinkle Again describes - albeit less blatant and more like the schools of 20 years ago than the schools of today, thanks to nostalgia. (Where I live, it's legal as long as fewer than 6 children attend or those children come from 2 or fewer families/households (by the government's definition of those terms) or it's timed to be compatible with a regular full-time school schedule, which in practise means fewer than 10 hours per week - which would still be enough for the "discount homeschooling" arrangement described above).

[Soror]

aha I remember the workbox trend here but I didn't know anyone who personally did it. 

Since the pandemic, there have been a growing number of posts about entirely online schooling. The idea is that people can do work or whatever and the kids school on their own. As long as I can remember there have been those looking for free and easy curriculum but now there is the online component added to it. I think the pandemic forever changed the schooling landscape. I think people saw kids all over the country schooling at home and they think we can do that all the time. For some, it has been a blessing because they never considered schooling at home previously and their kid was better off at home. I think online schooling is here to stay but in the long run, I hope people realize this is not great for kids to do FT, especially little kids.  

There was a co-op locally when we started hs'ing in 2009 when we started, however, it imploded that year when they lost the church and most of the leaders quit for various reasons- health/moving/kids going to ps. I've tried building a support group and tried doing mini-co-op but people that will regularly come to anything is hard and finding anyone to help is nearly impossible. One semester we did a little co-op and I had people come out of the woodwork. The lady that helped me went to nursing school and I had a baby, so I asked for help to continue and no one would help. People would love classes for kids but they don't want to pay or help. I really don't want to teach other people's kids for free just so my kid can have friends. I've done little classes for years and Scouts for nearly a decade. I just don't want to. People don't help and then complain about how it is done. 

We don't have any hybrid schools locally. Now, there is someone planning local events but there are a million different directions and they are all in the middle of the day or on the weekend. I don't know when people actually school. There aren't any co-ops here. The closest one is an hour away. I've been working with a friend trying to plan some field trips/play days a couple of times a month but I'm afraid she'll get too busy and we'll be on our own. I'm considering joining the closest co-op, which is an hour away so I know dd 10 has something to do. (there are very little options in our small town ). I tried to start doing events again after the pandemic but wasn't able to get much traction. I always just wanted to do field trips and park days so they could get in some friend time but people don't regularly attend anything. I've never wanted a co-op for classes for my kids but here we are. 

[HomeAgain]

43 minutes ago, Soror said:

aha I remember the workbox trend here but I didn't know anyone who personally did it.

Oh, yes!  Workboxes!

I actually did a variation of this for my youngest in pre-k/K.  I had a set of closed door cubbies in the living room and I labeled them with pictures to describe science, math, motor skills, art... Each day I'd fill them with a rotation of activities and he could choose what to work on.  It was half montessori (I wanted to see what he gravitated to and be able to tailor work) and half unschooling (full choice during the work period for cubbies, outside play, inside play...just no tv)

[Ellie]

58 minutes ago, Soror said:

We don't have any hybrid schools locally. Now, there is someone planning local events but there are a million different directions and they are all in the middle of the day or on the weekend. I don't know when people actually school.

When I was a support group leader, that was one of the things that our leadership team kept in mind when organizing: making sure that there weren't so many support group activities such that people didn't have time to, you know, teach their children. 🙂 So we did monthly, not weekly, park day, and two field trips a month, all on Fridays. Moms' Night Out was on the first Monday of the month. That was it.

[Shoeless]

2 hours ago, Soror said:

People would love classes for kids but they don't want to pay or help. I really don't want to teach other people's kids for free just so my kid can have friends. I've done little classes for years and Scouts for nearly a decade. I just don't want to. People don't help and then complain about how it is done. 

This was my experience, as well.  

I ran some mini classes and the local homeschool group for a couple of years. I got regular attendance from the same couple of families, and that was great and appreciated. But gosh, the whole experience was exhausting. The people that never helped were always the loudest complainers. I never got books back that I loaned out and there are people that still owe me money from classes they promised they'd pay for. I don't want to run anything ever again. 

Oh, and the funniest part? After all the work I did, planning parties, organizing field trips, teaching classes, my son said "That was you doing that?! I thought it was so-and-so's mom who did it all". 😵‍💫

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

I live in a state where we have 0 access to public schools unless it’s therapies that are on an IEP.  That may play into some of this.

I found one co-op still running that’s more academic than I’d like but it may be my only choice.  I really just want mom’s day outs and park days where we can really meet people, but I can’t always have what I want.

[Cordelia]

The vibe is different now. 

We have maybe 2-3 hybrid schools here, but the demand is there for many more. I personally do not see the appeal, but people are always looking for a hybrid. 

Lots of people in my area do CC. I am not interested in CC, but I think there are some people who do it because CC will take 4 year olds. It is impossible to find other homeschool groups or activities if your oldest is 4. In this area, not sending your 3 and 4 year olds to preschool is highly unusual and these parents need support, so I can see why CC feels like the solution. Not my thing though. CC is $$$, but the $$$ makes people show up, so I guess there are pros and cons to that. 

I am in an old school style support group and newer homeschoolers cannot seem to compute the purpose of a support group. I personally love it and hope it doesn't die out.  

[wendyroo]

14 hours ago, Shoes+Ships+SealingWax said:

The only hybrid program I’ve ever heard of that seemed the least bit intriguing was one an online friend mentioned where her DD attends the local public middle school 2x/wk & only participates in electives.

She can choose from all the same classes as any other student (band, choir, theatre, programming, foreign language, studio art, robotics engineering, dance, various sports) & is eligible for after-school clubs. If DS were ever really feel he was missing out socially & I thought he would benefit from the group setting but he didn’t want to move to public school altogether… I would consider it. 

As it is, any time I’ve mentioned public school being an option his response has been a vehement “Why on Earth would I want to do that?!” so I guess we’re stuck with one another 😉

We participate in a hybrid/virtual program through the public schools. We can't participate in their brick and mortar electives or sports, but we can and do participate in an elective day on-campus they offer just for the virtual students and "community partner" electives where the school pays for art, music, nature, foreign language and sports opportunities offered by local teachers and businesses.

There are almost no park days or support groups around here, but that is okay because that would be too unstructured and dysregulating for my kiddos anyway. Instead they do best in courses that are some mix of active learning and structured social time. For example, at their nature class when they have chunks of time to sled, build shelters, play "infinity tag", etc, it is clearly not "Sit at your desks; No talking!" time, but it also isn't a complete, unsupervised Lords of the Flies play time either. 

At the on-campus elective day this year, my elementary kiddos are taking Strategy Games, Hands on Aerospace, Fun PE Activities, and Songwriting. My 9th grader is taking Graphic Design, Free Art Time, "Logic, Puzzles and Escape Rooms", and Duct Tape Art. They do eat hot lunch there, and have recess, but they love both those things. It isn't anything like a public school experience: most of the classes are only 5-10 kids, there are only five teachers, and the teachers are much more like fun mentors - helping with projects, teaching tools and skills the kids are interested in, playing with them at recess, listening to kids gush about what they are doing at home and at community partners. I love that my kids have adults like that...to talk to, joke with, ask for help.

And the hybrid also pays for our Spanish immersion class, Spanish tutoring, Hands on robotics, "Creating Art through History" class, piano and violin lessons, swim lessons and gymnastics (at least a portion of it).

[Ellie]

1 hour ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

I found one co-op still running that’s more academic than I’d like but it may be my only choice.  I really just want mom’s day outs and park days where we can really meet people, but I can’t always have what I want.

That's just so sad! ::weeps::

[Ellie]

24 minutes ago, Cordelia said:

I am in an old school style support group and newer homeschoolers cannot seem to compute the purpose of a support group. I personally love it and hope it doesn't die out.  

Stay strong, my friend!

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

6 hours ago, Soror said:

People would love classes for kids but they don't want to pay or help. I really don't want to teach other people's kids for free just so my kid can have friends. I've done little classes for years and Scouts for nearly a decade. I just don't want to. People don't help and then complain about how it is done. 

Ugh. YES! I’m already Den Leader, Committee Member, Mom, Teacher, Spouse. My spouse travels for a living, so he’s gone the majority of the time. I put a ton of work into DS’ education. I do not need anything - or anyone - more on my plate. 

We go out of our way to always ensure we are thanking others (coaches, mentors, field trip coordinators, etc) because it is so much work that often goes in acknowledged. 

[LauraClark]

19 hours ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

I need to find our tribe, and they have to be out there, it’s just proving harder this year than I’d expected.

Can you start something up? I posted on our local Facebook page that I was starting "a park meetup for other homeschoolers every Friday from this time to this time." I posted every week. There was a lot of interest on Facebook but only a couple people (friends that I already knew) would show up. I was really discouraged. But, I've been persistent. We've been doing it for about 4 months now and are starting to get a good core group. There's been 5-9 families meeting regularly now (which, really is plenty-it would be overwhelming if 30 families or someone started showing up). There are people out there like you-don't give up!!

[daijobu]

9 hours ago, Soror said:

I really don't want to teach other people's kids for free just so my kid can have friends.

From my perspective this was a fair trade.  I led math teams through much of my homeschooling, mostly for free or low cost, so my kids could hang out with other mathy kids.  But then, I also just enjoyed it at face value.  

[Ellie]

12 hours ago, Cordelia said:

It is impossible to find other homeschool groups or activities if your oldest is 4. In this area, not sending your 3 and 4 year olds to preschool is highly unusual and these parents need support, so I can see why CC feels like the solution.

My FB group refers people with preschoolers to MOPS groups because we believe our purpose is to help people homeschool their children, and if the children are younger than five or six yo, it's parenting, not homeschooling. I know that many new, current parents want to say they're homeschooling because they bought shiny new preschool "curriculum," but we don't do that. Countless parents have taught their children to read and everything before the children went to school, but they didn't say they were "homeschooling." In our opinion, parenting is important, and we believe saying that they're homeschooling when they're parenting minimizes their importance and waters down what it means to homeschool.

[Soror]

15 hours ago, daijobu said:

From my perspective this was a fair trade.  I led math teams through much of my homeschooling, mostly for free or low cost, so my kids could hang out with other mathy kids.  But then, I also just enjoyed it at face value.  

Sometimes it has been worth it but I get resentful when I end up being a free babysitter with random kids so other people can complain and sit on their butts. Leading a robotics team with dh--- a total blast but tons of work. Scouts was a lot of work but varying amounts of worth it over the years. HS group has been the same. I'm less resentful when I plan small activities with friends or other activities that are less work- like field trips.

[kirstenhill]

Workboxes is a blast from the past...I definitely tried that when my oldest was about K/1st.  It was actually not a bad thing for us, but we quickly moved past it when she was just a bit older and I never tried it with the younger ones.  

I feel like I've always been marching to the beat of my own drummer curriculum-wise compared to any homeschoolers I've known in person.  When my kids were younger, we almost always had friends who were using more "all-in-one" curriculum options like MFW, Sonlight full packages, or Heart of Dakota.  I never thought it would work for me or my kids.  Now, I know a lot of people IRL who use everything from TGTB.   Online in a couple of FB groups I'm in, I see a lot of people who are looking for all online options, but I rarely meet anyone in person who is doing that locally, unless they are doing public virtual schools, and hanging out with homeschoolers for socialization. 

Hybrid schools aren't a thing locally, though I think there may be one or two in the near-ish metro area where we used to live, but I don't feel like I hear about them in my state as much as I hear about them from friends who live in other parts of the country.  Co-ops have had a lot of shake-ups since the pandemic both locally and in our former metro.  In our former metro, judging from things I see on Facebook at least, there are still a lot of different kinds of options, but locally more have shut down than started.  CC seems to hold steady.  We were a part of a support group (that was actually called a support group) years ago but it was more of a private ministry of a church we were associated with, not a public "advertised to anyone" sort of thing.  I've never yet heard about another support group in my current city or in the metro where we used to live. 

We have sent our older kids to public school for high school, but to be honest, this was our plan from the beginning.  It was a perfect fit for the older two...#3 I'm not so convinced it will work out, but we'll see.    We've organized a lot of our own activities that we wanted to participate in...math teams, and currently a board game club. 

[Red Dove]

This doesn’t have to do with homeschooling, but was a trend in the homeschool community- making everything from scratch. Food from scratch, beauty supplies, household cleaners…

Also, I am not old enough for this, but I heard from older moms that it was a trend to follow the Jewish feast days, and even turn Messianic Jew (as in not Jewish people converting to Christianity, but Christians turning Jewish but still believing in Christ as their savior). 

[Ellie]

1 hour ago, Red Dove said:

This doesn’t have to do with homeschooling, but was a trend in the homeschool community- making everything from scratch. Food from scratch, beauty supplies, household cleaners…

I lived for awhile in an area where if you didn't own a Bosch mixer and make your bread from scratch, including milling the flour yourself with your WhisperMill, there was sin in your life. LOLOL

[stripe]

4 hours ago, Red Dove said:

This doesn’t have to do with homeschooling, but was a trend in the homeschool community- making everything from scratch. Food from scratch, beauty supplies, household cleaners…

I think there was a huge trend a good ten or so years ago of blogging all the natural homemade things you were doing, making all your food from scratch, sewing tons of stuff, homebirths, etc., and it was all very competitive. I think homeschooling was an extension of that sort of professionalization of motherhood with very well educated moms educating their kids. I think this generally made me feel like a failure.

The homeschoolers I saw when my kids were younger were also from this type. They don’t bathe much, might go barefoot in public, wear old faded clothes styled from eras past (hippie skirts) and so on. I literally never saw so many children with uncombed hair (meaning, matted and sticking in strange directions) as in homeschool activities, and it’s definitely from upper middle class white people. I don’t know many religious homeschoolers, but the only surviving homeschool groups seem to be Christian groups that meet at least once a week. I stumbled across an online forum where people were stereotyping homeschoolers as completely socially deficient and weird, and it just made me really sad. A lot of homeschooled kids I know can barely write anything, both physically and in terms of their ability to compose. Then there are some who are very advanced and motivated. 

[8filltheheart]

Lol. My Whisper Mill is still going strong at 24. So is my DLX. Milling your own flour and baking bread is about health and budget. It has zero to do with "competitive motherhood." 🙄 I dont think I know a single other person IRL who buys grain in bulk. But, I sure enjoy a nice hot slice of fresh bread with melting butter.

And as a deeply religious person, my kids engage in personal hygiene. And their educations? Far superior to most.  And, fwiw, I know a lot of deeply religious homeschoolers.  And, no, we don't meet in groups weekly. (Though my kids would think it awesome if we did!)

Edited August 16, 2023 by 8filltheheart

[stripe]

It is really amazing how different everyone’s experiences are. (And I bake too.)

Just to clarify: I didn’t mean to attack anyone! I was talking about how I have felt like completely inferior in a sea of competitive mothers, and how various trends and behaviors have taken their toll on me. None of the people of the type I described were religious in the slightest. They were the “countercultural” types, and, yeah, there were a bunch who showed up regularly visibly soiled. That is who I have been around. Yet I know of ONE secular homeschooling group in my area, compared to the variety of Christian organizations offering up to five days per week of instruction by non-certified teachers teaching classes like cooking, art, music, and sports, OR very strictly classical topics. I see two extremes here.

[Maria327]

On 8/13/2023 at 9:38 PM, Ellie said:

My FB group refers people with preschoolers to MOPS groups because we believe our purpose is to help people homeschool their children, and if the children are younger than five or six yo, it's parenting, not homeschooling. I know that many new, current parents want to say they're homeschooling because they bought shiny new preschool "curriculum," but we don't do that. Countless parents have taught their children to read and everything before the children went to school, but they didn't say they were "homeschooling." In our opinion, parenting is important, and we believe saying that they're homeschooling when they're parenting minimizes their importance and waters down what it means to homeschool.

I agree with your definition of homeschooling starting at actual school age, but when my oldest was two all the other moms in my mainstream meet-up group started picking out preschools. I realized I was going to have to start finding other families who planned to homeschool soon because I didn't want my kid to feel left out if all his friends went off to school, and it was also easier to find like-minded mom friends if I sought out homeschoolers.

[Maria327]

On 8/12/2023 at 4:51 PM, Porridge said:

When people flippantly say that socialization is no problem for homeschoolers, I sigh wistfully, because it’s not been true for us.  The trend towards more options seems to somehow make it harder to build deeper relationships.  I have historically been a more “DIY homeschool at home” homeschool mom, but we are joining a full-day co-op with my younger this coming year. It is the only way to build relationships with a stable group of people. 

Yes, co-ops never appealed to me, but the reason my kids ended up joining one was that I couldn't find a social/support group that had consistent enough attendance for my kids to make good friends. It seems like if people aren't paying for it, there's no commitment. We tried a lot of groups that would meet a couple of times a month for a nature walk or social time, and we met a lot of nice families, but between us getting sick, friends getting sick, and people not being able to make it for some other reason, it seemed like we were only seeing the same families once a month or every couple of months. My kids also have not made friends at extracurriculars because there is no down time. But they made friends at their co-op because they have breaks between classes to play board games. Now I feel stuck because the co-op is not really what I want to be spending our time and money on long-term, but I don't want my kids to lose the friendships they've made. Playdates are hard to schedule when everyone is busy and friends don't live nearby. 

[Shoeless]

On 8/12/2023 at 6:51 PM, Porridge said:

When people flippantly say that socialization is no problem for homeschoolers, I sigh wistfully, because it’s not been true for us.  The trend towards more options seems to somehow make it harder to build deeper relationships.  I have historically been a more “DIY homeschool at home” homeschool mom, but we are joining a full-day co-op with my younger this coming year. It is the only way to build relationships with a stable group of people. 

You know, socialization is really a crapshoot. Some people get lucky and some people don't. 

I've seen a few posts where the socialization piece has worked out great for some people, and they say "You just have to ABC and XYZ to build those deep relationships. That's what we did and everything turned out fine for us". 

And that's great. I'm happy for those folks. But sometimes, you can ABC and XYZ the recommended amounts and then: 

• the parents of your kid's bestie get divorced and move away
• you lose your job and can't afford your kid's activities anymore
• the people that ran the only decent co-op in the area graduated their last kid and shut the co-op down with no warning
• your kid hates sports and dance, and those are the only ways kids socialize in your small town
• a global pandemic turns the world upside down

We don't have as much control over this aspect of homeschooling as we like to believe.  

[Ellie]

5 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

Lol. My Whisper Mill is still going strong at 24. So is my DLX. Milling your own flour and baking bread is about health and budget. It has zero to do with "competitive motherhood." 🙄 I dont think I know a single other person IRL who buys grain in bulk. But, I sure enjoy a nice hot slice of fresh bread with melting butter.

And as a deeply religious person, my kids engage in personal hygiene. And their educations? Far superior to most.  And, fwiw, I know a lot of deeply religious homeschoolers.  And, no, we don't meet in groups weekly. (Though my kids would think it awesome if we did!)

Pretty sure it was Mike Farris (HSLDA) who wrote an article called "Homeschooler Than Thou," because yes, in some parts of the country, in the late 80s-early 90s, it was like that; just add all the hands-on learning (especially with math) that was supposedly the best way for all children to learn, and you'll have it covered.

FTR, I love my Bosch, even though I haven't made bread in it for many years, even though it was the Best Bread Ever. 🙂

[Ellie]

5 minutes ago, Shoeless said:

You know, socialization is really a crapshoot. Some people get lucky and some people don't. 

I've seen a few posts where the socialization piece has worked out great for some people, and they say "You just have to ABC and XYZ to build those deep relationships. That's what we did and everything turned out fine for us". 

And that's great. I'm happy for those folks. But sometimes, you can ABC and XYZ the recommended amounts and then: 

• the parents of your kid's bestie get divorced and move away
• you lose your job and can't afford your kid's activities anymore
• the people that ran the only decent co-op in the area graduated their last kid and shut the co-op down with no warning
• your kid hates sports and dance, and those are the only ways kids socialize in your small town
• a global pandemic turns the world upside down

We don't have as much control over this aspect of homeschooling as we like to believe.  

Totally a crapshoot. As I have said, we didn't do co-ops when I was hsing; it was all support groups. But some of those support groups did family camping and meals together and their children all married each other (because also there was a time when courtship was all the rage) and it was awesome. I never found those groups.

[LauraClark]

A friend once asked me, when I was voicing my frustration at trying to find friends for my kids, "How many friends from school do you still keep in contact with?" It's zero: all my close friends were made as an adult. That has been really comforting to me. Yes, we try to find friends and we do lots of things to make sure they are "socialized", but I try not to give into that panic that some of my kids don't have best buds. 

[Ellie]

12 hours ago, Maria327 said:

I agree with your definition of homeschooling starting at actual school age, but when my oldest was two all the other moms in my mainstream meet-up group started picking out preschools. I realized I was going to have to start finding other families who planned to homeschool soon because I didn't want my kid to feel left out if all his friends went off to school, and it was also easier to find like-minded mom friends if I sought out homeschoolers.

I agree. But that didn't mean that you were actually homeschooling.

Back in the day, one of the leaders of my new support group had two children who were preschool age. She wanted to be part of a homeschooling group, so that when her children were school age homeschooling would just be a natural thing for them. And then the year that her older dc was 5, she put him in school and left the group, never to be seen again. Wut?

[Ellie]

6 hours ago, LauraClark said:

A friend once asked me, when I was voicing my frustration at trying to find friends for my kids, "How many friends from school do you still keep in contact with?" It's zero: all my close friends were made as an adult. That has been really comforting to me. Yes, we try to find friends and we do lots of things to make sure they are "socialized", but I try not to give into that panic that some of my kids don't have best buds. 

My dh went to one junior high and one high school. He was active in school--lots of activities. He knew lots of people and was known by lots of people. He has not heard from anyone since his 10th reunion 40 years ago. I have found people on FB that I knew long ago, but I am not "friends" with any of them. There was a group of kids in my senior year who had all grown up together; it is they who have powered our reunions and whatnot, but honestly, they still see each other, sometimes weekly. They don't need the school for that.

[freesia]

7 minutes ago, Ellie said:

I agree. But that didn't mean that you were actually homeschooling.

Back in the day, one of the leaders of my new support group had two children who were preschool age. She wanted to be part of a homeschooling group, so that when her children were school age homeschooling would just be a natural thing for them. And then the year that her older dc was 5, she put him in school and left the group, never to be seen again. Wut?

Yes. And in the early 2000’s when I started people wanted the group because they were homeschooling preschool. They had no intention to stay long term. In those days support groups were about passing on wisdom and mentoring and equipping people to do this new things. Of course some people will always leave for one reason or another, but many folks who don’t intend to stay but want activities geared toward them and have kids at ages that are very labor intensive can be a drain on the volunteers who run the group. 
 

Now, tbh, I did feel the way you do, Maria. Getting connected to the sub-culture in which you will raise your kids and learning from others is a good goal. I just came to see the reason for the rules. I handled it by be-friending homeschool moms, offering to take their littles to library story time and the park and going to homeschool conventions. And reading, reading, reading. 

Edited August 16, 2023 by freesia

[8filltheheart]

And then you have the women who insist they have been homeschooling since birth. I remember one time when I met a new family that the mom asked me how long I had been homeschooling, I responded 15 yrs and that my oldest was in college. She told me she had been homeschooling for 14 yrs and that I should get together with her bc she had lots of advice to share.  (Keep in mind that I was surrounded by all of my other kids, including other high schoolers.)  Turns out her oldest had just turned 14.  Um.  Right.  I had graduated 1, had 2 other high school students at the time, and her oldest was an 8th grader. LOL!  Um.  Just plain no.  She was beginning her 9th yr of homeschooling.  

[prairiewindmomma]

Eras I can remember (defined by what everyone around me was using), just off of the top of my head….

When we began: Konos, BJUP, and Abeka were what most people used. Miquon Math. Saxon Math. ACE Paces. TOPS science kits. Calvert textbooks. There was one Waldorf private school, one Montessori private school, and one Catholic private school an hour’s drive. They were each 15k/tuition about 25 years ago.

Next era: we added Janet’s yahoo PK Sonlight program (before Sonlight offered PK), Sonlight, Tapestry of Grace, Homeschooling Year by Year by Rebecca Rupp, Biblioplan, SOTW, Memoria Press, Math U See, Shiller Math, Teaching Textbooks, Tarbuck earth science/Chalkdust math/other college textbooks adapted for homeschoolers with various plans

Then: Mystery of History, Beautiful Feet, Veritas Press, Singapore Math, Mammoth Math, Apologia elementary science books, Handwriting without Tears

Then: Notgrass, Good and the Beautiful, Classical Conversations, Beast Academy, Life of Fred, NOEO, All About Spelling/Reading….

 

[prairiewindmomma]

12 minutes ago, 8filltheheart said:She told me she had been homeschooling for 14 yrs and that I should get together with her bc she had lots of advice to share.  (Keep in mind that I was surrounded by all of my other kids, including other high schoolers.)  Turns out her oldest had just turned 14.  Um.  Right.  I had graduated 1, had 2 other high school students at the time, and her oldest was an 8th grader. LOL!  Um.  Just plain no.  She was beginning her 9th yr of homeschooling.  

I am getting to be this old. It’s wild when you show up to an event with your youngest and some of the other moms there are younger than your oldest kid.

I’ve really appreciated your posts over the years. You, Nan in Mass, Lori D., Kalamanak….there are so many of you who have been a part of WTM over the years who really shaped me and our homeschooling experience through your posts. ❤️

[Porridge]

1 hour ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I am getting to be this old. It’s wild when you show up to an event with your youngest and some of the other moms there are younger than your oldest kid.

My oldest kids is only 10th grade, but I am one of the oldest moms in this new coop that we are joining. It feels weird! The other moms are lovely, but it really is a different stage of life 🙂

[8filltheheart]

6 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I am getting to be this old. It’s wild when you show up to an event with your youngest and some of the other moms there are younger than your oldest kid.

I’ve really appreciated your posts over the years. You, Nan in Mass, Lori D., Kalamanak….there are so many of you who have been a part of WTM over the years who really shaped me and our homeschooling experience through your posts. ❤️

Ah, thanks.  I have really tried to pay it forward over the yrs.  I was very blessed by homeschool moms in my early yrs and by experienced moms like Kathy in Richmond even many yrs later.  I have been giving homeschool to college workshops since 2014 in order to encourage moms that they can do this without paying enormous amts of $$.

5 hours ago, Porridge said:

My oldest kids is only 10th grade, but I am one of the oldest moms in this new coop that we are joining. It feels weird! The other moms are lovely, but it really is a different stage of life 🙂

I'm definitely the oldest homeschool mom in anything we do.  I don't necessarily have the oldest kids in what we are doing, though.  There are younger moms whose youngest is older than my 8th grader.  😉  Most of my homeschool friends are about 10-12 yrs younger than me and have kids older than my youngest but still have kids around her age.    I planned an event this summer, though, where there was a huge turnout.  I realized as I was talking to them that dh and I had just celebrated an anniversary that was older than many of their ages!  (Granted, I did get married young even by then standards.  😉 )  I have never fit in anywhere.  99.9% of people our age are empty nesters.  When we were younger, no one our age was married, let alone had kids.   So being the odd one out, has always been part of our life.  By the time our friends that were our age had kids, our oldest was almost 8 and we had 4 kids.

Edited August 17, 2023 by 8filltheheart

[Green Bean]

8 minutes ago, 8filltheheart said:

Ah, thanks.  I have really tried to pay it forward over the yrs.  I was very blessed by homeschool moms in my early yrs and by experienced moms like Kathy in Richmond even many yrs later.  I have been giving homeschool to college workshops since 2014 in order to encourage moms that they can do this without paying enormous amts of $$.

I'm definitely the oldest homeschool mom in anything we do.  I don't necessarily have the oldest kids in what we are doing, though.  There are younger moms whose youngest is older than my 8th grader.  😉  Most of my homeschool friends are about 10-12 yrs younger than me and have kids older than my youngest but still have kids around her age.    I planned an event this summer, though, where there was a huge turnout.  I realized as I was talking to them that dh and I had just celebrated an anniversary that was older than many of their ages!  (Granted, I did get married young even by then standards.  😉 )  I have never fit in anywhere.  99.9% of people our age are empty nesters.  When we were younger, no one our age was married, let alone had kids.   So being the odd one out, has always been part of our life.  By the time our friends that were our age had kids, our oldest was almost 8 and we had 4 kids.

This. Totally this.

[Shoeless]

These were big for a while, as part of the Pinterest-Perfect Workbox trend. And yes, I fell for it. Nope, it didn't revolutionize my homeschool at all. 😂

https://www.michaels.com/product/10-drawer-rolling-organizer-by-recollections-10197632?cm_mmc=PLASearch-_-google-_-MICH_Shopping_US_N_Storage_N_PMAX_BOPIS_N-_-&Kenshoo_ida=&kpid=go_cmp-18514199906_adg-_ad-__dev-m_ext-_prd-10197632&gclid=CjwKCAjwivemBhBhEiwAJxNWN4YViw9Vtt6qCwQVgkNrVB4QGDdOz9L3PzMdJNjfousldbYZvJdFZhoCvaoQAvD_BwE

[kathyl]

On 8/16/2023 at 12:39 AM, Ellie said:

Totally a crapshoot. As I have said, we didn't do co-ops when I was hsing; it was all support groups. But some of those support groups did family camping and meals together and their children all married each other (because also there was a time when courtship was all the rage) and it was awesome. I never found those groups.

When we first moved here, we attended a church that did this.  A few families had founded the church years ago and they had been doing a co-op for years.  Quite a few of their kids have married, to the point that I couldn't keep up with who was related to whom.  I had never seen anything like it.   

 

On 8/15/2023 at 5:46 PM, stripe said:

I think there was a huge trend a good ten or so years ago of blogging all the natural homemade things you were doing, making all your food from scratch, sewing tons of stuff, homebirths, etc., and it was all very competitive. I think homeschooling was an extension of that sort of professionalization of motherhood with very well educated moms educating their kids. I think this generally made me feel like a failure.

The homeschoolers I saw when my kids were younger were also from this type. They don’t bathe much, might go barefoot in public, wear old faded clothes styled from eras past (hippie skirts) and so on. I literally never saw so many children with uncombed hair (meaning, matted and sticking in strange directions) as in homeschool activities, and it’s definitely from upper middle class white people. I don’t know many religious homeschoolers, but the only surviving homeschool groups seem to be Christian groups that meet at least once a week. I stumbled across an online forum where people were stereotyping homeschoolers as completely socially deficient and weird, and it just made me really sad. A lot of homeschooled kids I know can barely write anything, both physically and in terms of their ability to compose. Then there are some who are very advanced and motivated. 

I've never seen anything like this either, with the lack of hygiene and all. Where, generally, was this?  Just out of curiosity.  It sounds like a hangover from the 60's hippies?

[Ellie]

On 8/16/2023 at 9:55 AM, freesia said:

Yes. And in the early 2000’s when I started people wanted the group because they were homeschooling preschool. They had no intention to stay long term. In those days support groups were about passing on wisdom and mentoring and equipping people to do this new things. Of course some people will always leave for one reason or another, but many folks who don’t intend to stay but want activities geared toward them and have kids at ages that are very labor intensive can be a drain on the volunteers who run the group.

I have known more than one support group leader who regrets allowing parents of preschoolers to join their support groups, because the preschool parents began to complain that there were not enough activities for their little 3yo dc, and the actual homeschooling parents, wanting these parents to feel accepted, allowed them to take over, and before long it was a MOPS group and the school-age children had no activities. So, yeah, if I were leading a support group again, we would accept parents of preschoolers as long as they understood that all activities would be planned for the school-age children, and we'd refer them to MOPS.

[Tanager]

I don’t get this “early college” community college thing during 11th and 12th grade. How can the community college classes be the same as year 1 & 2 of the 4 year college classes and just transfer? Are they all really the same - how can that be when our national education level is so low? The closet community college has it set with the college my oldest wants to go to for everything to transfer easy peasy. Sounds like it’s perfect, but I’m still scratching my head on it.

Over the years we kept in touch with people we clicked with, making our core group strong. Our social options tanked during and after COVID as one by one our tribe moved away. We’ve organized some things and it seems that parents just want to drop the kids off. When they stay they stare at their phones and I'm not sure if I should talk to them. It’s hard. Community building, mentoring, connecting... 

[prairiewindmomma]

5 hours ago, Shoeless said:

These were big for a while, as part of the Pinterest-Perfect Workbox trend. And yes, I fell for it. Nope, it didn't revolutionize my homeschool at all. 😂

https://www.michaels.com/product/10-drawer-rolling-organizer-by-recollections-10197632?cm_mmc=PLASearch-_-google-_-MICH_Shopping_US_N_Storage_N_PMAX_BOPIS_N-_-&Kenshoo_ida=&kpid=go_cmp-18514199906_adg-_ad-__dev-m_ext-_prd-10197632&gclid=CjwKCAjwivemBhBhEiwAJxNWN4YViw9Vtt6qCwQVgkNrVB4QGDdOz9L3PzMdJNjfousldbYZvJdFZhoCvaoQAvD_BwE

We still workbox.  It was a lifesaver when we were homeschooling all four kids.  Two of our Trofast units have since become lego storage and have migrated to bedrooms. One holds art supplies (drawing/ sketching & charcoals, drawing/alcohol markers, watercolors, printmaking, clay sculpture tools and clay glue, calligraphy, one big drawer of like modpodge and adhesives and fixatives, and ????). The last Trofast unit is still in use as workboxes for Youngest. I don't have Youngest turn her box around when she's done since I only have to keep tabs on her, but I still recommend the system for anyone with a lot of kids, particularly if those kids have ADHD and are disorganized.

The Trofast boxes bring to mind the notebooking and everything Montessori for young children era though.  I think I forgot to mention that above.  Thank goodness paper was a lot cheaper 15 or so years ago.  I printed off so.much.stuff. and a good chunk of that was either then pro clicked or laminated.

[Soror]

On 8/16/2023 at 12:16 PM, 8filltheheart said:

And then you have the women who insist they have been homeschooling since birth. I remember one time when I met a new family that the mom asked me how long I had been homeschooling, I responded 15 yrs and that my oldest was in college. She told me she had been homeschooling for 14 yrs and that I should get together with her bc she had lots of advice to share.  (Keep in mind that I was surrounded by all of my other kids, including other high schoolers.)  Turns out her oldest had just turned 14.  Um.  Right.  I had graduated 1, had 2 other high school students at the time, and her oldest was an 8th grader. LOL!  Um.  Just plain no.  She was beginning her 9th yr of homeschooling.  

There is a small local hs conference coming up and I saw one of the speakers was listed a hs veteran of 10 years. Her oldest is 12 I think. I've counted it as hs'ing since k age at 5. 

I've noticed now there are a lot of self-professed experts. People start a blog, or podcast, or write a book. They may or may not have experience with what they are talking about, likely if they do it is not much. Besides the lack of experience mostly it is people making things look pretty without a lot of content. Then you have people that act like they are 'being real' when it's just as fake as all the rest. 

I have definitely learned so much here over the years but I had to tailor the application of that knowledge to our family. There is no best curriculum for anything. If I want experts I look for those that have lots of personal experience and a solid track record. I'm not looking for self-promotion or self-proclaimed experts looking to cash in on hs'ers.

Edited August 18, 2023 by Soror

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

10 hours ago, Tanager said:

I don’t get this “early college” community college thing during 11th and 12th grade. How can the community college classes be the same as year 1 & 2 of the 4 year college classes and just transfer? Are they all really the same - how can that be when our national education level is so low? The closet community college has it set with the college my oldest wants to go to for everything to transfer easy peasy. Sounds like it’s perfect, but I’m still scratching my head on it.

Over the years we kept in touch with people we clicked with, making our core group strong. Our social options tanked during and after COVID as one by one our tribe moved away. We’ve organized some things and it seems that parents just want to drop the kids off. When they stay they stare at their phones and I'm not sure if I should talk to them. It’s hard. Community building, mentoring, connecting... 

even back in 1998-2000, I did much of my junior and senior year at the community college. The classes absolutely were high school level. I did English, math, history and science there.  They all transferred and while I still spent three years at my LAC, I was able to graduate with more than one major because of transferring in so many credits. Many college 100 and 200 level classes are really just high school level gen eds, especially at community college.

The community college classes frankly were easier than my freshman and sophomore level homeschool classes.

Edited August 18, 2023 by Mrs Tiggywinkle Again

[Shoeless]

10 hours ago, Tanager said:

I don’t get this “early college” community college thing during 11th and 12th grade. How can the community college classes be the same as year 1 & 2 of the 4 year college classes and just transfer? Are they all really the same - how can that be when our national education level is so low? The closet community college has it set with the college my oldest wants to go to for everything to transfer easy peasy. Sounds like it’s perfect, but I’m still scratching my head on it.

Over the years we kept in touch with people we clicked with, making our core group strong. Our social options tanked during and after COVID as one by one our tribe moved away. We’ve organized some things and it seems that parents just want to drop the kids off. When they stay they stare at their phones and I'm not sure if I should talk to them. It’s hard. Community building, mentoring, connecting... 

I think it depends on the community college. Some of them are good and the classes are thorough, other schools are not so great. It's also about the pace of the material covered: same material as 12th grade perhaps, but covered in half the time and minus the endless busywork. 

[Porridge]

16 hours ago, Shoeless said:

These were big for a while, as part of the Pinterest-Perfect Workbox trend. And yes, I fell for it. Nope, it didn't revolutionize my homeschool at all. 😂

https://www.michaels.com/product/10-drawer-rolling-organizer-by-recollections-10197632?cm_mmc=PLASearch-_-google-_-MICH_Shopping_US_N_Storage_N_PMAX_BOPIS_N-_-&Kenshoo_ida=&kpid=go_cmp-18514199906_adg-_ad-__dev-m_ext-_prd-10197632&gclid=CjwKCAjwivemBhBhEiwAJxNWN4YViw9Vtt6qCwQVgkNrVB4QGDdOz9L3PzMdJNjfousldbYZvJdFZhoCvaoQAvD_BwE

I have something like this and it has been really helpful for one of my kids!

[Porridge]

4 hours ago, Soror said:

I'm not looking for self-promotion or self-proclaimed experts looking to cash in on hs'ers.

Yes this makes me sad and cynical

[happypamama]

1 hour ago, Shoeless said:

I think it depends on the community college. Some of them are good and the classes are thorough, other schools are not so great. It's also about the pace of the material covered: same material as 12th grade perhaps, but covered in half the time and minus the endless busywork. 

This.  The big community college around here has made a point to have certain courses transfer to the big flagship state university.  Dual enrollment is not free for us, and my older kids were not interested, but that *would* be a selling point for me for our younger kids, that we could have them do DE at the CC, knowing that they could transfer to the big university easily.  Why pay for the big uni right away if I don't have to?  (It's also an easier commute to the CC.)

It would also depend on the student.  Long story, but I did take 4-credit calculus, such as for engineers, even though the 3-credit community college calculus would have sufficed, because I knew even early in high school that I did not want to do anything related to science or engineering in college.  So what I would advise my own students to do would depend on the student's needs and plans.

This thread is interesting to me.  I did workboxes for my older kids for a bit, not quite to the extent that some did, but it was helpful for a while.  Categorizing subjects has helped *me* as the teacher not to overwhelm my students with those smaller things while also making sure they did not get skipped.  I just use Trello now instead of a physical box.

I had my oldest kids in my 20s, so I have some homeschooling friends around my age (although I was usually younger by a bit) who also have kids the same ages as my older kids, so done or in high school, but most do not also have younger kids.  And I was heavily pregnant with our sweet littlest baby on our 20th wedding anniversary; he is almost five, and all the moms with five year olds are way younger than I am, closer to my oldest's age than mine, since we have a 17 year gap between our oldest and youngest.  

One trend that I see that is kind of annoying is people who do not read the law for themselves.  We're in PA, so the laws are very specific in some areas and yet very vague in others, and our school districts vary in how much they know, so it is really important that WE know and read the law for ourselves.  I know Google is sometimes a bit sus, as my big kids say, but I feel like a lot of people have not even tried to read it for themselves.  I've been homeschooling since 2007, when my oldest would have gone to K, and I still read through the law yearly to make sure I am doing everything right.  

I do feel like current new homeschooling parents are kind of. . . overwhelmed?  There is SO much available now, and that's wonderful on the one hand but also way overwhelming.  People will ask, "What's the best math curriculum?" because they have no idea where to begin, and they'll get fifty answers.  I'm kind of glad there weren't so many things so readily available when I was starting out, although I tried a fair number of things.  

[Wheres Toto]

Our local CC's have arrangements with the state flagships to transfer credits but many of them won't transfer as major courses, only electives.   Our closest CC used to be referred to as "13th grade" but they've gotten a lot better in the past decade or so and are considered one of the top CC's in the country now.  

[ElaineSmiles]

On 8/18/2023 at 8:17 AM, Soror said:

I've noticed now there are a lot of self-professed experts. People start a blog, or podcast, or write a book.

I've seen this in a book I checked out from the library where the author told us that she had homeschooling experience from the time her child was born so she really had a lot of experience.  It felt like she was trying to convince us to trust her with her advice using that line of thinking. It was definitely offputting, but I didn't know that this sort of character was becoming more common.

 

On 8/15/2023 at 1:15 PM, Red Dove said:

This doesn’t have to do with homeschooling, but was a trend in the homeschool community- making everything from scratch. Food from scratch, beauty supplies, household cleaners…

I was pregnant with my oldest back when this became popular and definitely made all my own cleaners, laudry detergents, etc. from scratch for several years.  😆  Never tried to do all of the cooking and such, but I remember reading all of the blogs and thinking it was a fun way to go about things.  I stopped doing that when I became dissatisfied with the quality of DIY cleaning methods, got in to couponing, and needed to focus on homeschooling.

We are on the younger side of homeschooling, so we haven't seen much come and go.  I did use TGTB to start out 😆, but just for the LA component. I have since moved away from it.  It's cheap, and it does kind of hold your hand at first so you can gain the confidence you need to move on. The only local hybrid everyone regards as a private school option.  They are definitely going for the private school vibe: school uniforms, universal curriculum selections, hired official teachers.  I think it attracts people who want private school but who also need to save money.  

I'm sad to hear that a lot of the informal opportunities to meet are not only getting rare but are getting completely replaced.  I would love to do things like invite a handful of families over for a middle school science club so we could run labs together and then hang out, and I really want to do more park days.  Any time we plan them through our co-op they are pretty poorly attended (like one or two families come besides the one who planned it).

[vonfirmath]

On 8/18/2023 at 12:38 AM, Tanager said:

I don’t get this “early college” community college thing during 11th and 12th grade. How can the community college classes be the same as year 1 & 2 of the 4 year college classes and just transfer? Are they all really the same - how can that be when our national education level is so low? The closet community college has it set with the college my oldest wants to go to for everything to transfer easy peasy. Sounds like it’s perfect, but I’m still scratching my head on it.

Over the years we kept in touch with people we clicked with, making our core group strong. Our social options tanked during and after COVID as one by one our tribe moved away. We’ve organized some things and it seems that parents just want to drop the kids off. When they stay they stare at their phones and I'm not sure if I should talk to them. It’s hard. Community building, mentoring, connecting... 

They have a whole program for it in Washington. My friend who homeschooled her kids all the way through relied on it. She got them enough math to pass the Community College exams, then they finished out school there.  The oldest got a culinary degree and was a sous chef for a while. She now teaches as a Cooking teacher in a high school and owns a restaurant with her husband. The youngest got a phlebotomist certificate. I don't know what she's doing now.  The youngest would be about 28 now -- so this was a while ago.

Even when I was in school, some of the seniors (esp) went off to Blinn College to take classes.

My husband went off to University of Washington instead of 8th grade and spent his entire "high school" going to college instead. 

When he was getting his Masters (after we met) at Texas State University, he was a TA for a while and there were a LOT of students in the remedial classes because they could not pass the exam to take courses that got diploma credit without backing up and learning math they had not managed to learn in HS.

 

Edited August 20, 2023 by vonfirmath