# Your family's educational choice



## Cheryl in SD (Apr 22, 2005)

I know there are parents here who home school, use public school and private schools. Why did you decide where your children are educated?

I think most parents really care about their child's education and this might be an interesting excercise.

Why we homeschool -

* Quality of education - our local school is one of the lowest ranking in the state
* Length of bus ride - They would travel over an hour each way on *bad* roads
* Physical problems - My children have life-threatening allergies and are allergic to shots so cannot be vaccinated, at our doctor's and state health department recommendations, we looked into homeschooling as an option.
* Quality time as a family - DH is an OTR trucker, hs allows us more time together as a family
* Moral foundation - we can teach our family's values without un-teaching from school/peers
*Safety - while there ARE safe schools, our local school is NOT (5 sexual assults last year, children dropped by the road by the bus to wait for the second bus - school district only stopping the practice after a court order, to name two examples)
*Time to explore personal interests - children's not mine! I would have more time if they went to ps!

Tto list our main reason's


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## bluefish (Jan 27, 2006)

For us it was
Quality of education
safety
moral foundation
time to explore personal interests
family time together

and, ironically regarding the socialization thread and ErinP's posts, the ability to live as remotely as we can. Hopefully soon. I grew up far enough away from the PS that I had an hour and half bus ride. I loved living that far out and really, really miss it.


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## ErinP (Aug 23, 2007)

Ours is very similar--


Why we homeschool--
*Quality of education:* Last fall DH and I were informed by DS's teacher (2-3-4 combined classroom) that she wasn't going to be teaching science or SS that year and focus on math and reading. Since that's what she'd done the year prior, minus the actual proclamation, we decided he needed to be out of that school. 
We pulled DD this year, also.
*Length of bus ride:* To our local school, the bus ride is nearly an hour both ways. The other grade school in our district is 40 miles away, so the bus ride would have been an hour in the morning and an hour and a half at night.
*Quality time as a family: * That bus time really eats into a day. Not only did they have very little play time in the evening, but we were always so rushed in the morning.


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## cindy-e (Feb 14, 2008)

Homeschool
* strongly influenced by Dr. Raymond Moore's research on children and bonding. As a government researcher, he studied children who spend most of their time in school with other kids rather than with their families and discovered that these kids will allign their loyalties to their friends instead of families, will get their values from their friends instead of their families, and really see their friends as "the closest most important relationships in their lives" rather than siblings or parents. We are talking about even very young kids, not just teens. (So Erin, if you are reading this, this is the other side of the socialization argument.) Dr. Moore promptly pulled his kids out of school back before it was "done" and is considered the father of the modern homeschooling movement.

* Religous/moral instruction
* Desire for stronger academics
* Learning differences in kids
* Advice of the educational psychologist we worked with as part of the plan to address learning differences in my kids. 
* Large family dynamics. (hard to explain - don't want to spend my life driving different age kids from one school to another school, and I want my kids to actually value each.)
* The ability to allow my kids to spend time on the things that they excel at and enjoy. 
* Once we started, and enjoyed it so much, we kept doing it. 

Cindyc.


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## meanwhile (Dec 13, 2007)

For us it was the quality of education plus we travel and it was simply easier to take charge ourselves rather than use a public/private school. We did try one year of a mix of private (they let us take lessons with us and then come back to school every month) school and Homeschool but it did not work out.

Also, our kids work well independently and it was faster for them to plow through material they wanted to rush, then spend more time on things they liked more. Plus we did / do major projects - huge building projects, or gardens and big travel projects, etc. and those projects take up most of their time.

Now - we are very much in transition this year. Our oldest son, age 21, graduated early from 4 yr college, is back home part time but traveling far and wide. Our middle son just graduated high school and now started a 4 year college but he is 2 years ahead of same age peers......and so he and his brother bought a small house together near his college. We all share the house part time, he is there part time alone (working on independence) and it is a great opportunity for me and our 11 year old to be "in town" and off the Farm. We are meeting new Homeschoolers and it will open new doors for our younger son.

What I am trying to say is that for our Family, Homeschooling has continued into their college years and it is still working well for us.


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## halfpint (Jan 24, 2005)

We made this decision about 18 years ago, so it is hard to remember all the reasons. Our oldest two were in a Christian private school at the time. Our oldest was gifted, and they wanted him to skip a grade, and youngest was in K and they wanted to hold him back but said he would be ready for 1st about mid year. So with God's prompting and my husband's approval, I quit my job (and since I was making more than my husband took quite a pay cut) and began home educating.

We were able to move oldest son along at the pace he needed, and he was able to explore a lot more subjects and go more in depth with home education, and they were able to develop their musical skills more. Second son was pretty much a half year behind for most subjects, and we decided with his agreement to hold him back (when he was in 8th grade) so that his senior year in high school he could pursue many missions opportunities, an internship, dual enrollment, and work to save money for college.

We have been able to study history as a family, going much more in depth than just memorizing dates, and since my husband began to travel a good bit after I quit work, we have often been able to travel with him - and it's been amazing how many places that he's been sent to that happened to be where something happened that we were studying in history and could visit.

None of my children have ever been at every subject at grade level. I've had some that were a year or two ahead in one subject, at grade level in others, and behind in another. Usually when they are ready they can go through two years of a subject in one year.

I know what my children are learning, so whatever we are doing can usually be applied to their studies (ie cooking, shopping, visiting museums, hiking etc.).

My children all enjoy being with one another and with family. Friends find it 'odd' that my 25yo and 22 yo still want to take vacations with us, and often come over for game nights. So family fellowship has probably been one of the biggest benefits for us.

We have continued home educating because it is working for us.

Dawn


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## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

We made the change mostly for academic reasons, but with the 'socialization' aspect coming in a close second. Thanks to the members here who helped us with the choice - we only switched last fall!

My DS (now in grade 8, 13 yrs) is academically advanced - not necessarily "gifted" but close enough to have trouble in regular classrooms. His cohort here at the country school is only 17 kids, the majority of them not particularly strong academically. Essentially, my kid was learning to 'coast' and to work the system - he could be done his work in short order, then have to wait around while everyone else did 'make up work', and it just seemed ... well, it seemed dumb to teach him that doing the minimum was all he ever needed to aspire to, but since with a one hour bus ride each way to school there's not really the option of saying "I'm finished, can I go home now?"

We do virtual schooling, through a local school that is very supportive and flexible, and will work with us to give him advanced work in things he's interested in (he can start doing some high school one-credit courses this year, if the first term goes well), and academically, that's working out well for us. It makes him responsible for his own learning, rather than just sitting there absorbing and then repeating without really 'getting it' - he has to engage, on purpose, on his own, and that's really good for him. 

I learned those lessons the hard way, when I was in university, so I'm glad to see him learning it younger. That was our primary motivation.

Not far behind, though, was the fact that at school, he was absorbing a culture that doesn't really align well with our personal beliefs - we are not deeply religious, we are Quakers who tend to be open minded and flexible.  Still ... open minded and flexible doesn't mean being okay with the overwhelming 'gimme' attitudes that are so prevalent, and although most of the kids are pretty good kids, really, it was just ... well, it was so hard to help my son grow up to be the kind of person I think he really CAN be when he was marinating all day in a culture that told him to be someone else. I couldn't "wash that off" in the few hours in the evening ... so, this way, he sees less of it, and has more of a chance to grow into his own strong self before he's pushed so hard by a popular culture gone a bit awry.

And, for additional interest, my two step kids go to public (Catholic) school in the city, and are doing well so far. They live with us half the time, and do the commute to daycare/school when they are with us. If we still lived in the city, I think my son would probably be in the Catholic International Baccalaureate school, which he really did well in, but I'm really glad we live in the country and have this option available to us. So far, so good.


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## Michele of MI (Jul 8, 2009)

We homeschool for many of the reasons already mentioned. My oldest son is a good reader. In 2nd grade he was at a 10th grade reading level, however he would not do the homework for the gifted program so we were told that he would be in a lower level class...He was bored (of course), and disruptive. We were not happy at that point, but it got worse... He is not good at math, two years behind his age group. The school would not help him. They passed him to the next grade level, though he could not do the work. My younger son was being harrassed on the playground and nothing was done, although it was happening right outside the office window. Every time I was at the school one of the students was getting beat up in front of the parents that were there for recess. The school counselor told us that we were bad parents because we do not buy our children everything that they want. And this was in a Catholic grade school! The public schools here are no better, though they are rated as very good. We felt that our children would be better off at home, where we can meet their educational needs, and teach them right from wrong. I never doubt that homeschooling is far better than the alternative for our family. We are in our second year.I also get to be there for all the special firsts, like the first word my daughter read. Now that is pretty great!:goodjob:


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## rxkeith (Apr 13, 2009)

we will be home schooling because we don't want a standardized kid taking standardized tests.
we want him to learn at his own pace and explore his interests as far as they go.
we want the time with him.
we think it is better for him. he will be better able to reach his full potential.


keith


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

We homeschool. We noticed when our son was three that he knew things he shouldn't know a that age. My son is also high demand...needed constant attention or will act out (more then an average kid). He didn't handle down time well. I'll talked to my mom and she (a teacher in Catholic schools) suggested we homeschool till he "averages out". That idea stuck and we were VERY glad we made that choice when he was K age. The year he would have gone to K he was already reading on a 2nd grade level and doing 1st grade math....our public school didn't teach reading until 1st grade then (they changed that the following year). My son would have bounced off the school walls and been a pain in thier behinds. Possibly branding him as a troublemaker or an out of control kid (which, from a public school view....he would have been).

This year, if schooled outside the home, he would be in 5th grade. He started doing his 5th grade work in March last year, so he's a few months into it. So he's now "equalized" out. But now homeschooling is our way, we have found other benefits that we not even though of before hand....many of which have already been mentioned. The big one is the flexibility and ability to emphasize what we feel in important right now, which may or may not be "grade appropriate". This year writing will become more important for us. We have just glanced over it in the past as DS really wasn't "able to". He just wasn't ready.....but this year he is already showing that our patience will be well rewarded. I'm not sure how a "traditional" school would have dealt with is "pencil-phobia". If it's anything like the way they dealt with it for my husband (DS is truly DH's son in MANY ways) DS would have already learned to hate anything that has to do with writing.


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## Elsbet (Apr 2, 2009)

We homeschool for many reasons. Despite our strong religious beliefs, that actually had very little to do with our choice to homeschool. My kids have food issues and were too often coming home extremely sick from contact glutening. Sometimes kids who didn't like them would try to touch them with their food, or things like that. My kids weren't thriving academically. Even though we lived relatively close to the school, they were still gone too long every day. I missed my kids, and they missed me. Safety issues were major, and I had to fight fight fight with the school and transportation systems to have safe drop off/pick up places. We had a couple of VERY bad experiences with teachers (although most of them were darlings. The bad eggs stink up the whole casserole, though.)
And, I have some very definite ideas about what constitutes a good education, and due to kids acting out at school and the teachers having to act more like prison wardens than teachers, my children were not getting one.
So we homeschool, and are very happy doing so.


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