[OrangeDaisy]

This is not meant to flame. I have honest misgivings about home schooling and would like someone to give me some facts that might make me see the light.

I teach a Sunday School class of 5th & 6th graders, and I haven't had good experiences with home schooled children. One child is several years behind compared to the others in the class. Her mother seems almost illiterate, but the state (or something) allows her to continue homeschooling her child. Several other home schooled children I have encountered over the years had difficulty interacting with the other students in their Sunday School class. I have never encountered a home schooled child that seem didn't seem to isolate themselves from other children. I admit they were very intelligent but were also very arrogant about their intelligence. Are these home schooled children be able to cope when they enter the real world?

[hsmomx3]

Sorry to hear about this because I haven't seen this. You will probably be directed to several articles by FReepers but you could also go to http://www.hslda.org and read their articles.

[skyman]

We homeschooled all 3 of our kids. 1 is now graduated from a major university and the other 2 have 2 year degrees and are now attending universities.

Neither my wife or I graduated from college, although we did attend. None of our kids are exceptionally smart, but they all know how to work hard, have respect for others and unlike most public school kids were never dependant on their peers.

Studies prove that home schoolers on average are better adapted, do better in college and are more mature than public school kids.

Sky

[Lady Heron]

I teach a Sunday School class of 5th & 6th graders, and I haven't had good experiences with home schooled children.

In my son's Sunday school class he and the other homeschooled girl in his class of about 23 public schooled kids are the only ones that get called on to read because the others can't. This is still happening now that they are in the 8th grade. Very sad.

[Lady Heron]

I have never encountered a home schooled child that seem didn't seem to isolate themselves from other children. I admit they were very intelligent but were also very arrogant about their intelligence. Are these home schooled children be able to cope when they enter the real world?

My oldest 2 homeschooled kids wanted nothing to do with the Church's youth group when in high school. They are very much able to cope with the real world (the more mature adult world), they just wanted nothing to do with the imature teen scene.

They spent their teen years trying to be as successful as they could in their respective intrests. Both have well thought of reputations in the adult world and have acheived things that many adults are striving for in their carriers. This before they even start a carrier.

Sometimes it is hard to get past what is considered normal for a child and see where they are going with their education. The real world is not what is experienced in schools wierd social structures, that is just how we have become use to our kids acting.

[N3WBI3]

This has not been my experience with home schooled children, at my old church in NY the pastor and his wife homeschooled their five girls and they were exceptionally polite, kind, and outgoing kids.

Parents who homeschool often have their kids engage in programs like the Boy/Girl Scouts (thought I would not let my daughter attend Girl Scouts as it is run by NOW), sports, church activities, and the like so that the kids do socialize with other kids.

My wife (to be) and I are going to try and have kids right after we get married (less than 2 months). She wants to homeschool them until they are old enough for high-school, we both want them to have homecoming games, the prom and all that fun stuff but we also want them not to be indoctrinated eight hours a day by the government while they are very young..

[keithtoo]

We have 5-6 home schooling families in our church, plus several other families that have home-schooled at some point in their childrens education. I see virtually no difference between these kids and any others. If anything, they seem more secure and mature than most others.

It is possible for undisciplined parents to under educate their kids in a home school environment, but guess what? Kids who attend public schools can be woefully under educated as well.

The bottom line is that kids are the responsibility first and foremost of their own parents, and not the government.

[HungarianGypsy]

Not everyone is meant to homeschool. The homeschoolers that seem to stand out are always those that seem odd. There may be others that are homeschooled that you didn't think of.
For the longest time I assumed people in my church knew my children were homeschooled. Whenever I mention it (usually after asking what school my children attend), they often look surprised.

[Red Boots]

Well, I've observed this in my own homeschooled kids, who aren't very interested in interacting with public schooled kids who often seem to lack social skills. I, too, have difficulty interacting with people who are out of control and lack social skills. Call me weird, but there it is. It's interesting that what used to be considered a normal human reaction to rude and out-of-control people ( to want to avoid them ), now is considered a social liability. Whatever happened to letting people march to their own drummers, however distant and far away... ( my apologies to Thoreau)

[liberty or death]

Our 5 children, all homeschooled don't fit into any of the normal social patterns. They don't need the group to survive and find many of their peers act like a weekday sitcom or an mtv video. Many kids in a Sunday school are there for the same reason as a public school, free babysitting. Without parental guidance born of unselfish love your kids will have problems no matter how they are schooled. You have named a bunch of steriotypical observations on some homeschooled kids that are preached straight from the NEA. Are you?

[Lizavetta]

One child is several years behind compared to the others in the class.

Several other home schooled children I have encountered over the years had difficulty interacting with the other students in their Sunday School class.

Knowing that a child is homeschooled creates a built-in bias in some people, maybe even you. People put those children on a much higher plane of expectations. These children you've described could be any kid, but you know they're homeschooled so you are subconsciously less tolerant of their problems.

I have never encountered a home schooled child that seem didn't seem to isolate themselves from other children.

Sorry, I don't believe ALL the homeschooled children you've met are like this. What kind of children were the homeschooled ones avoiding? ALL of them, or the obnoxious ones? If it's the latter, I frankly don't blame them.

I admit they were very intelligent but were also very arrogant about their intelligence.

This is a condemnation of arrogant parenting, NOT homeschooling. How often have you met children who were arrogant about their trendy clothing, their privileges, the 'stuff' their parents could afford, or the car their daddy bought for them when they turned 16? Would you condemn the government schools for that behavior, or would you just chalk it up to immaturity and/or their parents?

It's just like the people who come down on Christians who f*ck up in life MORE than the non-Christians.....there's a higher level of expectations about how they should behave so it's criticized more harshly when that expectation is not met.

[GOPrincess]

Think you've just chanced to have bad experiences. A close relative teaches Sunday School for 5-year-olds and commented to me a couple weeks ago how stressed most of them seemed. Upon some delicate querying of parents, etc., she determined that there were a lot of "school issues" going on including bullying. The children who didn't appear to be stressed were homeschooled. Her experience doesn't necessarily correlate to how all schooled and homeschooled children act, either, it was simply a quirk that appeared this year. She had formerly been questioning homeschooling but a series of positive experiences changed her mind.

I would also add that we saw *lots* of arrogance in my daughters' gifted classes. The arrogance and cliquishness led in part to our deciding not to put younger daughter in the same program and homeschool her instead.

I think you'll find most homeschooled kids, if you meet a wider number of them, to be regular, ordinary kids having a positive experience.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I admit they were very intelligent but were also very arrogant about their intelligence.

Beat you in an argument did they? :) This of course is never found in good publicly schooled children. They are stupid and know their place.

Are these home schooled children be able to cope when they enter the real world?

Doing just fine, thank you for asking.

[Bob Mc]

" One child is several years behind compared to the others in the class. Her mother seems almost illiterate, but the state (or something) allows her to continue homeschooling her child."

Perhaps the child is mildly retarded. Perhaps the parents felt it was better for her to school at home than be ridiculed and have her self esteem destroyed by obnoxious public school brats. Perhaps she was pulled out of public school specifically because she was so far behind. We have to trust parents and give them the authority to make the decisions with their children. If we don't, then we are all just slaves of the state, and the only solution is to take them away before any damage can be done (some here on FR will even argure that's what public schools are doing).

"Several other home schooled children I have encountered over the years had difficulty interacting with the other students in their Sunday School class. I have never encountered a home schooled child that seem didn't seem to isolate themselves from other children."

Homeschooled children are not exposed daily to the rowdy, undisciplined, pent-up public school kids. I wouldn't blame them for avoiding public school kids. They are often treated more as adults than are public school kids, and are not segregated by age like public schools. Herding together some 30 odd kids all of the same age for a critical 12 years of youth is a horrible way to raise children. They need to be exposed to adults, older and younger children. Yes, there are these in public schools, but interaction is extremely limited, and not at all encouraged.

" I admit they were very intelligent but were also very arrogant about their intelligence. Are these home schooled children be able to cope when they enter the real world?"

Better that than letting them become little government brainwashed public sheep. Public schools are teaching children about adult subject matter such as drugs, sex, sodomy, violence, socialism, racism, global environmental gloom and doom at ages before they are even old enough to maturely comprehend or appropriately apply the knowledge. Many are so confused, they often don't know right from wrong. We see regulary in the news horror stories of public school kids gone berserk.

Even if what you say is so, is a little "arrogance" so awful? Seems to me there are much bigger concerns with public school kids, than a little arrogance in some homeschooler. Also, I don't think arrogance is a rarity in public school kids either. If they are intelligent as you say, they will grow out of it, they'll cope just fine.

[cookcounty]

A lot of parents home school their kids because their kids were having trouble "fitting in." That's what I did. It turned out great.