This started as a comment in the megathread but got long so I decided to make it it’s own post. Obviously covid makes this different, but for general purposes, I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it till I die, please don’t homeschool your kids
I was homeschooled from early in elementary school until halfway through my sophomore year of high school. The reason I joined high school is because I was so depressed and lonely I wanted to die, and I knew my education had been neglected for years, so I begged my parents to put me in public school. Basically the only thing my parents kept up with was math and that’s only because they had me in online math classes.
And of the homeschooling parents I knew, mine were some of the best ones as far as actually educating their children go. Mild neglect with some basic math and science from atheist parents is worlds better than the psycho Christian “education” some people I knew got.
But even with all that the education was the smaller problem. Turns out math is the only thing that actually builds on itself over time in the American education system, everything else just restarts but slightly more complicated when you get to high school.
The bigger problem was how alone I was and how stunted it made my social skills, something I’m still dealing with now and I’m in fucking grad school. Kids and teenagers need to be around people their own age. I straight up did not learn how to function properly in social situations. I almost got the shit beat out of me in my first week in high school for calling a football player a dumbass. If adults said things to me that were mildly accusatory I’d cry, but also I had no concept of not saying shit so I’d call out adults for any minor system issue or other problem completely out of their control which most people just found annoying. I had so much trouble understanding fairly basic social interactions.
My younger brother was homeschooled from after kindergarten all the way until his senior year of high school, which he then dropped out of. He was more stunted both socially and educationally than I was, and started smoking weed nearly every day when he was around 15 to cope. It also definitely didn’t help that my whole family is chock full of mental illness. I think he did just start at community college though, which I’m super proud of.
So yeah. Rant over. Don’t home school your kids. It’s shitty.
As an European it’s always absolutely boggled my mind that shit like that can even be legal. Where are the government agencies to save these poor kids from their crank parents?
cw
you sound like you just had bad parents.
yeah i literally got groped all the fucking time by 20+ people in highschool. in fact, i literally do not trust anyone ever because of this (including my boyfriend, even though hes awesome). so many people sexually assaulted me that all their faces blurred together and everyone i see walking down the street frightens me. i had a surgical wound and people would try to mess with it. im not gonna send my kids to go get sexually assaulted and filled with capitalist indoctrination. my bf and i are both highly qualified to educate children and even got certs for it for this purpose. none of the school admin helped.
not to disparage your loneliness, but thats all i ever wanted in highschool. to be left alone.
My kids are homeschooled. We took them out of school when they were repeatedly bullied, and school administrators did nothing about it. Small-town old boys club shit. There’s no such thing as school choice, private schools, or any other options where we live. It’s the local school or nothing. If my kids don’t feel safe in the local school, then goddamnit, I’m not gonna force them to go.
I do feel you on the social side of it, and that’s the part that we struggle the most with, especially with covid, it’s hard to find social time outside of the family, but outside of covid, that was at least possible, and something we took very seriously. Homeschooling is not for everyone, and there are definite downsides, so I’m not an advocate of it, but I think we’re making it work for our kids.
I was homeschooled by southern baptists who eventually turned into self proclaimed “reformed” baptists/ Calvinists. Neither parents were college educated, and i was constantly reminded that my gender required a male guardian even in adulthood, and that my godly purpose was to obey and procreate. i still have social anxiety, intimacy issues, and im terribly insecure about my education, especially math. I dont talk to my family at all anymore either. They would hate what ive become ( a communist with no children or husband!)
I think the only case it works is if like theres a community of parents cooperating and basically starting their own neighborhood school. But yeah otherwise that sounds pretty bad
