The Basics of Home Schooling

You posted: I am sorry that your child has less than an idea home/educational situation, as described by you. It is a shame, but in these circumstances, your child will need to be institutionalized for her education.
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Huh? First, I have two children, not one, as my post made clear. Second, what is “an idea/home educational situation”? Our educational choices are just what we intended them to be. We are fortunate that we could have home schooled or sent our kids to private or public schools, as we wished. We honor and respect those who choose to home school, but our choice was to send our kids to public school and to supplement their education by staying involved at home with them, and providing other learning opportunities.

My wife and I both attended public schools. My mother would have STUNK as a home school teacher, and my wife’s mother WAS a public school teacher. But here in less poplulated areas of North Carolina we don’t face some of the problems big city public schools face. We both succeeded despite/because of our public school education. The key is parents being involved and concerned.

I bet your online program is being pushed for kids who were expelled or suspended from public schools. This situation seems to be increasing. When I started homeschooling my older children(1986) we never met any kids like this. Now they are common. They are not “homeschooling” because of a commitment to education. They are homeschooling because they have little choice. We had to kick a couple of these kids out of our homeschool group because they were thugs. They beat up younger kids and their mother did nothing. If I wanted to put up with that, I would have sent my kids to school.

hahah, ok, Truth is out. I NEVER taught grammar. Oh, we read Shakespeare and he wrote a lot, and often. But he graduated before I got to the nitty-gritty things like grammar and term papers. He learned grammar when he took Russian at 15, and he writes beautifully.

My friend who teaches at a university near here said all the research shows that ‘good readers make good writers.’

Interesting thread. Thanks for all your guyses posts (speaking of grammar). So very interesting.

It is you who stated that your wife has helicopter tendencies. It is you who is pointing out that your mother would have “stunk” as a homeschooling mother.

I am sorry, that some home circumstances are less than ideal. In situations such as this, institutionalization for education is needed. orphanages are often the best option for some children as well, but no one is advocating orphanages as being normal or ideal.

We get our kids to think critically when confronted with perspectives presented at school with which we disagree, whether presented by teachers or other students.

That is exactly the approach we took with our two children, 1 who is a rising college sophomore and one is who is a rising high school senior. Now that we have many years behind us, every now and again, I will have younger parents ask me how we turned out two polite, intelligent young ladies and I answer the same way. We kept talking to them about what was going on at school. We provided a time and place for homework. We made education a priority with the scheduling of doctor/dentist visits and never, ever took a vacation during school. But I think most importantly, we made church attendance a priority, not just something we did if we had the time. Even though my younger plays on a competitive softball team, we still found a way to attend, even if it meant she would miss a game.

I think some of the problems that some have with their kids is that they send them off to the public schools, breathe a sigh of relief that the school will take over, and then are surprised when the kids don't reflect the family values. They don't reflect them, because they weren't taught them. Never for one moment did I assume the schools would teach my girls about morals or Christianity, or even sexual education. We, the parents did all of that. In 10 years, neither of my girls attended FLE (Family Life Education or Sex Ed here in VA). We opted them out because it wasn't the schools job to teach that to our girls.

All that being said, we were also fortunate enough to raise them in a household with 2 same religion parents, one that was financially stable, and in a good school district. It seems the chances for success go down when any one of those four supports are missing. Was it a great deal of effort on our part? At times it was, but it led to two fine young ladies of which I've very proud.

Successful home schools generally imbed some or all of these elements, such as a stable home, and a 'good school district' via the home schooled curriculum. Although I've heard of home schooling being done by single parents, the overwhelming majority are 2 parent families, and it's very common for home schoolers to be active in a church. Once again, in these cases, 4 good supports are in place and success is not a surprise, but the expected outcome.

Wow, I respect the work you have done with your children. We have boy/girl twins, rising 10th graders. We don’t take vacations during school either, and we do attend church each Sunday. So far our kids haven’t rebelled against that and we just treat it as a given. They are both pretty involved in church activities and are turning into leaders in that regard. We considered home schooling as well as private school, but elected to go with public schools. We had the “sex talk” (or, rather talks) before the schools’ program, and let them attend it. We actually WANT them to hear some of the wrong information out there so that WE can correct it, which, I believe, provides stronger results than just hearing us alone. There is sexual activity and, I am sure, drug use, at the high school they attend. They are both athletes, and so far drug use doesn’t even appear to tempt them. They don’t hang out with those groups. Our daughter is more open about her hoped for romantic life, but we keep pretty good tabs on our son as well. They will get driver’s licenses in January, and our monitoring will have to be stepped up, I guess. We want those temptations to be dealt with now, however, instead of when they are out of town, in college, and less subject to our immediate influence. During that time we will be doing lots of praying...

D/L ?I'll tell you what the judge told us (to get your D/L, every kid meets in a group with the judge here) Just because they have a license, it doesn't mean the training wheels are off. Mine got her license in March, yesterday was the first time I let her drive solo on the highway and in congested traffic. Up till now, she's only been allowed to drive locally and/or when I knew traffic would be light. Give them LOTS of supervised experience, even when the license is in hand. The other thing the judge said that made sense was to not have a curfew for walking through the door - have a curfew for leaving, that way there is no rushing and pushing the speed limit to get home before curfew expires. So, when she is to leave a party or movie, or whatever, she calls me at 11 (our curfew time on weekends) and we discuss how long it will take her to get home. It's more important to arrive alive than to meet a time limit.

Prayer - you bet - that's a given. Sounds like you have two terrific kids also. I know you are proud of them and it sounds as if they are deserving of it!

Good luck with those licenses - I've found Tums to work best for acid reduction, although my husband prefers Maalox :)

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