What are some positives and negatives of home schooling?
pdooma asked:
I was home schooled part of the time, but my situation was completely different than what my son’s might be. Can you name some pros and cons of Home Schooling?
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I was home schooled part of the time, but my situation was completely different than what my son’s might be. Can you name some pros and cons of Home Schooling?
January 19th, 2010 at 12:57 am
well i can say on pros d child gets to be home n u dont have to worry about all this dangerous stuff dat happen in skool. but the cons dat i have is dat my friend started home skool right after middle skool, she ended up being kind of dumb she didnt know more than half of the stuff they send her she would call me so i could hep her she didnt finish didnt get her diploma n she doesnt know how to spell right. snookum pookers
January 21st, 2010 at 1:09 pm
honestly i don’t think there are any pros to home schooling children i don’t think it should be legal for a couple of different reasons
1. the children don’t get the interaction that they need to have with other children there age family is awesome but it’s not enough
2. how long do home schooled children actually sit down and learn i know they don’t get taught the full 8 hours that they would if they were in a real school masonsmomm08
January 23rd, 2010 at 11:30 am
I can think of more pros for homeschooling than cons, even though my kids do public school now.
I would say learning at their own pace and having more one on one is the biggest pro. They can move as quickly or slowly through a lesson plan as they need and still end up ahead at the end of year.
Flexibility for activities is something I miss. Most extracurricular activities (music, dance, sports, gymnastics etc) all have day time schedules as well as evening and you can pick and choose which times work best for you and your child.
Tailoring education to fit the child. This is especially true with science and social studies. You can spend a whole year on a certain topic and it can take you a hundred other places relating to that subject.
Home school groups typically offer more field trips. Many of the groups have such a packed schedule you wouldn’t even be able to do half of all they offer.
For younger grades, 2 to 4 hours per day of table work is all they need to get the major subjects out of the way. The rest of the day can spent on family time and other interests.
* In my daughters elementary school there is 6 hours per day. 40 minutes is reading groups, 30 minutes is gym or art or music, 20 lunch, 30 minute recess and then add up all the time the teachers have to dedicate to other kids that are ahead or behind on certain subjects. Take all of that away and focus on one child and it amounts to about 3 hours tops (not including reading time) that they complete all of their subjects in a day.
You can plan vacations during off seasons and get less crowds and lower rates allowing you to take more trips.
(I would add more but I’m only half here on y!a atm) sunshine
January 24th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
Pro’s
You decide what your child is learning
You can set the schooling hours and times
You can take them and their education on the road whenever you want
They can learn at their own pace, no need to wait for an entire class to catch up
You get more time with them
Cons
It can take more work to get them the social time they need with other children
It can be overwhelming being with your child 24/7…everyone needs a break
They won’t get the real school experience, learning with peers, teachers, etc
It can be hard for the child to be home most of the time (no school/home separation)
I’ve only started homeschooling my niece this year, but I’m noticing a big difference in her interest and understanding of her school work and her maturity level. So far for us, it’s been a positive move. Luckily, she goes to work with me and does school there, so there’s a ton of interaction built in and we get away from the house. We’re also part of an online school, so there are many outings and other kids to meet up with and relate to.
ETA
Smile made some great points I’ll add to. It does not take 8 hours of table work per day to fullfill state requirements, we’re often done in 4-5 hours and so far,we’re a good 3 weeks ahead of the school. Also, the one on one is something you don’t get nearly any of in public school. Not to mention there are many more activities offered during the day, so you can pick what hours work best for your family, instead of going with the after school/night only hours. Busy Barbie 007
January 27th, 2010 at 12:07 am
I don’t know if I’m a good person to respond because I had an absolutely horrific experience of home-schooling. So this is just from my experience and opinions:
1. You may start off with a good routine, but it can soon slip into little or no routine, until one day you find yourself and your children watching countdown all day every day.
2. The child has little or no contact with other children, and can grow to feel unliked and abnormal, which will of course affect it as an adult.
3. The child has no one other tham it’s parent to compare ideas and opinions with.
4. The parent will end up ailienated from other people and may become dependent on its child for companionship.
I’ll think of more later. .
January 30th, 2010 at 10:32 am
Pros:
Individual attention.
The opportunity to pursue their own interests and learn in depth what truly interests them.
Parents get more peace of mind by having their kids at home learning what they want them to learn (I don’t necessarily see that as a plus for the kids).
Extra family time.
It accommodates to the family’s schedule and lifestyle.
I might be totally off but I think it’s also cheaper to home-school in the long run.
Parents can better control the extra curricular activities and the friendships the kids have.
For children with special needs the learning experience can be closely supervised and modeled to their own particular needs and difficulties.
Cons:
A sheltered life. In my opinion the experience of home-school does not properly reflect real life experiences if compared to regular school.
Children might be denied important data on science and current events. If regular schools can be biased I think getting your academic education directly from your parents makes it harder to develop critical thinking.
My sanity would be compromised if I had to home-school.
Keeps children dependent for longer.
Parents and children have to go extra lenghts to socialize outside of the family. At a regular school it’s as easy as talking to a classmate, for home-schooled children plans must be made and even so, most parents would hand pick the people and the places the kids get to interact with. Ana
February 2nd, 2010 at 5:46 am
I had to move in with my father when I was 14. I had just went through a really traumatic time in my life and my stepmother and father both felt that normal school wouldn’t be right for me and my brother right away. (I had went to grade school and middle school, but not high school.)
My stepmother home schooled me and my brother, we have the same exact hours as the normal high school did (7:30 - 2:11). She didn’t play around with us, she made sure we did our school work.
Me and my brother went to a high school for the first time when we were 16 years old. We started as juniors. And we both did really great in high school and graduated two years ago with honors.
I didn’t mind being home schooled. I liked it alot.
But I did miss being around kids my own age, I was with my brother everyday. And that wasn’t much fun. Haha.
I can’t say that I would want to home school a child of mine, but if it was necessary for me to do so, I would. emilyy,
February 4th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Omg…i answered this and then i deleted the text. UGH! I’ll be right back after i change a diaper and then i’ll answer this. ughhh.
Okay, i’m done with what i had to do.
I am going to homeschool my daughter, just for a few years…i want to lay down a firm foundation and let her learn at her own pace. That’s a pro. Here’s a few other pro’s i’ve realized from having her at home and sort of starting the “homeschooling” routine.
Pro’s: they can learn at their own pace. If they get something you can move on, or if they are taking slower to get something you can spend more time on it than having to keep the class going or slowing down for the ones who don’t get it. She gets more one and one time to learn, also. We spend a whole week on one thing she wants to know about and i also incooperate what she needs to know for kindergarten and even more than she needs to know for kindergarten. And that’s only for about 30 minutes a day. The rest of the time is reading books, putting together puzzles, going to museums on that subject she wants to know.
Con’s:
I do worry about her socialization and my sanity since i’m going to be at home with them all the time. She will also not have the chance to be in the “normal” with other public school kids. ~baby blue eyes~♥ AKA Val
February 6th, 2010 at 12:23 am
I was homeschooled my entire life until I went to college. I wouldn’t change a thing! I got to learn at my own pace, learn what was interesting to me, I had either my father or my nanny to help me all the time and didn’t have to wait for the rest of the class to catch up to do something, or ask to use the bathroom, or live behind a cramped classroom’s walls for 13 years of my life. I had and still have a very close relationship with my father and step mother, where I think school and the over-dependence a lot of public school kids have on their peers sometimes drives a wedge between families and causes a lot of friction.
I could see how socialisation might be a problem for kids in remote areas, where there’s no other kids in the immediate area, but it really wasn’t an issue for me. I had tonnes of friends of all ages, grades, backgrounds, etc., right in my own neighbourhood. I just didn’t see them until the afternoon on weekdays. We had weekends, summers, school breaks to play. I also had my brother to play with during the day when our friends weren’t around, who’s my age and still my best friend. Plus we both did sports, clubs, I was in girl scouts from age 5 until 16. I don’t feel I was sheltered at all. It’s not like you only learn about life at school. Our friends would just come home and tell us, we knew all the same stuff, “got” the same jokes as other kids did, understood references to pop culture and all that. It’s not like we were in Plato’s Cave, isolated and only given one view of life and reality. We had as many or more than our public school friends did, since we had much more time out in the world than they did. The time they spent in a classroom learning about the theory of things, we were out living them and experiencing them.
I was very well prepared for college, despite never having really had a formal lesson in anything. I didn’t even use curriculum, and I did fine. I went to community college when I was 16, took the SAT and ACT and got into university at 18, on time or before most high school kids, plus I already had 2 years of basic college classes down. I didn’t have any problem disciplining myself like my school friends did, since I’d never had a teacher pushing me along or holding my hand or reminding me when something was supposed to be done, so in a way I guess I had a built-in sense of scheduling, since I’d done it all my life with other projects and undertakings. My schooled friends just didn’t have that and a lot of them went crazy with their new freedoms or slacked/got behind in their work. I’d always had so much freedom, so much self-determination and freedom of choices, that it wasn’t a novelty to me so I moved into adult life very easily. My brother went to university as well, did as well as I did and is equally happy with how he was educated.
I will say that I had, for my time, a very unique homeschooling experience. Father called us relaxed homeschoolers, but we were basically along the same lines as today’s unschoolers are, he just never used that term.
Most homeschoolers from when I was young, were the ultra religious homeschoolers with parents who used homeschooling as a way to isolate their kids and were extremely strict. That absolutely is a negative to me, and that’s probably where the “unsocialised homeschooler” stereotype comes from. They are unsocialised and they’re weird as all get-out. Secular homeschooling started catching on more as I got older, but my brother and I were on the very early end of that. I was homeschooled for much different reasons, but my father never isolated us and we were free to socialise with anyone, not just a certain kind of people like religious homeschoolers, and our education wasn’t religiously based at all. Mostly we were homeschooled because my father has a very strong belief against institutional education and doesn’t really trust the government to know what’s best for the individual child, and doesn’t believe in the one-size-fits-all education that’s pushed in public and even in most private schools, and he didn’t want us indoctrinated into the “average American” mentality. I believe the same thing, and that’s why I’ve chosen to go the same route with my daughter.
Potential cons to me would be the potential to use homeschooling as a way to neglect education, or abuse a child, which is why many states (my own included) have a register of homeschoolers so they do know who is homeschooled and can go inspect if there’s any complaints. As above, I think using homeschool to isolate a child and only allow one viewpoint (usually a religious one) is absolutely disgusting and a gross abuse of homeschooling. Another way I can see it being a bad experience for a child is if there’s a very high-strung parent in the home, always hovering over them and completely controlling them, or if there’s other tensions in the home (marital problems, fighting, stuff like that), homeschooling might make those worse or make a child feel trapped. I know that not all families are happy like mine was, and if I place myself in someone with a bad home life, I can see how homeschooling might be the worst possible thing for a child. But a healthy and stable home life, I think homeschooling works well.
Homeschooling can be great if a parent goes out of their way to make it great like my father did for my brother and I, and now for my little siblings. We were given every opportunity, actually a lot more opportunities than other kids our age were, so I feel very lucky that I never went to school or had to base my life around school. I’m glad I spent my childhood in the real world, rather than sitting in a classroom just hearing about the real world while being isolated from it.
ETA: I was exposed to loads of people who drank, smoked, cussed, fought, and were rude and sometimes violent. The difference is, I could choose to leave their presence whenever I wanted, where my public school friends couldn’t. Hmm. Sounds a lot like college. You have a choice whether to be in a room or a class in college.
Oh, and about prom and graduation… if prom or graduation is the highlight of your first 18 years, and only thing worth going to school for, something is wrong. I never went to prom and have no diploma from schooling. I promise, I’m not deprived (; Half my friends who were from public school didn’t even bother with prom, and most I know were bored at their own graduation. They did have a great time with senior ditch day, though
EVERY day was ditch day to me, LOL! Alana ✧ [Jane's Mommy]
February 9th, 2010 at 10:42 am
I think homeschooling is great, it’s my plan for any children I have. People complain that there is no social interaction. This is false! 1. if you have other kids, there ya go. 2.There is also church, sports activities, home school groups-your child doesn’t have to go without social interaction. The public schools are awful nowadays, I went from a Christian academy to a public high school and was MORTIFIED. Sure your kids need to know what the outside world is like and how to interact, but you can get a taste of that just by going to Wal-Mart! You don’t have to be in public school to see that. Also, in my experience (I’ve known a lot of people who were homeschooled), kids can learn a lot more and can end up a lot smarter than kids on their level. This is not always the case, but is common. For example, my cousin was homeschooled, and was several levels ahead of kids his age. They are not held back by classmates that require more help and time, they are not limited to learning a certain amount every year. They can also have fun by “field trips” just like at school! I would also feel better knowing my child is safe with me. When public school means constant bomb theats and a fight breaking out 4 times just during lunch, I’d feel a lot better. Also, (and people can disagree on this one) children can end up a lot better off, and avoid ending up in the wrong crowd at school. I mean you can’t shelter your kid from everything, but in my opinion homeschooling can help avoid unwanted problems.
The cons are that you can’t very well work if you’re teaching your child at home (you can, but you can’t guarantee they’re really learning everything they need to learn, plus you’re not there to supervise them), homeschool can get expensive (at least as far as I know), and if you don’t keep them involved in stuff like homeschool groups and/or church or sports groups, they can lose a lot of interaction with others. Another negative is that if you don’t understand the material yourself and your child doesn’t understand (high school stuff like algebra, for example), you’ll have to find someone who can help or hire a tutor.
I hope I’ve been able to help, I think homeschooling is an excellent way to go!! amazinglove0220
February 9th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
I don’t home school, and I do not plan on homeschooling…so what I will state below, is simply what I think, without any experience or actual facts. I am not against homeschooling, nor do I think that it shouldn’t be allowed, it’s just not for me… it’s NOT for everyone.
Homeschooling can be good in many cases, especially to those children with special needs, or children who need any sort of extra attention/care. Some benefits of it are that the child has no chance of being bullied everyday (as children can be very cruel), the child(ren) will get more one on one attention, they graduate at 15 or 16 I believe as apposed to kids who attend public schools, they graduate at 18 or 19. It can be beneficial also, as I’ve heard, home schooled children are apparently ahead in their studies, and do well in college/university.
Now, home schooling has negatives just like public schooling does. I think personally that every child should have a chance to be educated by someone who is a certified teacher, and went to school themselves to learn about child development and has earned a teaching certificate. Children who are home schooled won’t experience prom and graduation the same way public school children will. I understand that home school kids do have a prom and graduation, but it’s just not the same. It’s not with the people you grew up with for so many years, and saw every single day. By no means to I think that home schooled kids are outcasts. I know that they hang out with friends, join clubs, do extra curricular activities, go out, date, have friends…ect. I just mean it’s not the same no matter what you say. I also do think that they are in for a big shock when they attend real school (college/university), because they WILL be exposed to all types of different people who smoke, drink, do drugs and ‘party hard’ every single day. They will experience peer pressure on a whole different level.
I’d just like to say that I definitely do see why parents who home school chose to do so. I am not against them, and it really bothers me when I say what I said above, and parents tell me I’m uneducated and ignorant. No, I am not thank you very much, I went to college AND university, I’m just being realistic and NOT judgmental. Mama to a princess 10/27/09
February 11th, 2010 at 10:45 am
I am homeschooling my 5th grader this year for the first time. Up till now he was in public school, but he just wasn’t doing that well and I wanted more for him, I wanted learning to be fun, I wanted him to realize just how bright he really is, and we were spending so much time at home catching up on work he didn’t complete in school, I felt like school was a waste of his time if we were going to be doing so much together anyway.
I believe homeschooling may not be ideal for every child/parent and a lot of it depends on just how much thought, planning and energy the parent puts into it as well as the personalities and relationships involved. Not every parent has the patience or desire to teach their own child. If someone had suggested I do this anytime before now, I would have told you that my son and I would be at war all day long! The time was just right and the place where he and I are in our relationship is a lot better. I’m not sure if it’s his developmental age, or maybe I’ve become more patient or a combination of the two, but three years ago this would have never worked.
PROS: I can focus specifically on my son’s problem areas. I can see right away if he’s not getting a subject and if we need to try a different approach or just do more review and practice. For subjects like reading, we have the flexibility to pick books that really grab his interest. The same goes for writing assignments. He loves to watch “Myth Busters” so I have designed writing assignments around watching segments of that show. I have the opportunity to make every-day chores and errands into learning experiences for him, dragging him to the grocery store and showing him how to comparison shop and use coupons has real-world value! As for socialization, there are these fabulous organizations called homeschool co-ops in which several home school familes pool their resources and have classes, teachers, curriculums etc. Whatever your need is, you can probably find it. My son goes to a co-op once a week, sees his friends, takes geometry, world trade, spanish & hands on science and guitar lessons. He always leaves with a smile on his face, and it’s just one day, so we have plenty of time the rest of the week to work on the curriculum I have chosen.
CONS: Most of the cons are on my end of things. I worry that I’m not covering the right material, enough material etc. Some days I am more patient then others, some subjects I don’t find that exciting and I think it might come across to my son that way as well! There are some days that my son talks about going back into public school, and I do think we may try that some day, perhaps for high school. It can be hard to get him together with his friends from public school, and I try to keep those friendships going for his sake just in case he does end up going back. We are such a busy family that “play dates” can sometimes fall low on the totem pole. reddevilbloodymary
February 14th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Well, I was homeschool for most of elementary school and all of middle school. So here you go
PROS:
- You can give your child a much better education. American public schools, by and large, suck, and honestly, so do many private schools. This is obviously a blanket statement.
- You can tailor the education to fit your child. Maybe your child’s a math whiz, but is still a little behind on his reading - you can spend a lot of time working on his reading, making sure he has the basics (I’ve seen a lot of kids get screwed over because they never got a chance to get down the basics), while letting him blow through math.
- You have a very flexible schedule. Whether you want to give him his birthday off or you want to take him to Disneyland on the off season, you can change your schedule around and not get a visit from the truant officer.
- You can give him the education you want - whether it’s reading Bible stories or learning the inner workings of a car hands on, you can decide what you think is important.
- Two words: individualized attention.
CONS:
- You can also give him a very bad education this way. You have to be ready to 100% commit to this - I knew kids who were homeschooled just because they didn’t like getting up to catch the bus, and by 5th grade were still having a very hard time with basic concepts, like phonics and addition.
- It can be very lonely. Make sure he’s in at least one activity where he gets to see friends on a daily basis.
- He won’t get the experience of presenting to a class or working in a group unless you sign him up for a “homeschool group”. These are important skills to have.
- Some people will tell you that it’ll make him socially retarded. However, I’m almost positive that the homeschooled kids with social problems would be like that anyway, because often they come from radical families (both liberal and conservative.) If he does Little League or Cub Scouts or something, he should be fine.
- Oh, and many people will also tell you your kid will be “sheltered”. That all depends on you, but I honestly was corrupted as any of my public school friends in the sense of knowing a lot of swear words and a lot about sex…you can take that as either a pro or a con haha. I have friends who went to public school their entire lives who are far more sheltered than I ever was.
Hope this helped. Good luck! luckytacs
February 16th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
there are no positives. its boring and you feel lonely. i should be working on my english class right now. but obviously i get distracted. dont do homeschool. Ashlyn
February 18th, 2010 at 5:39 am
Even if i am still in contact with my friends it is total social suicide. :\ Gummib3ar042497
February 19th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
I am a Christian and i raise my child to be a christain too and i have been homeschooling him on the computer and u can learn more about it here i like it because it automatically grades him and he hates having to read so he can just highlight it and click on speak and it also comes with three different voices….. Jennie M
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:52 am
I homeschool my children, and the only real con is having to deal with the ignorant myths and stereotypes that people continue to perpetuate as if it were fact. What I see as a pro or a con, though, may not be legitimate for the next person. Each person needs to weigh what they personally see as the pros and cons and make the decision right for themselves (their child/family).
For us, some of the pros are:
My children work at their own pace. This means that they are not rushed along before they are ready, or held back needlessly.
My children use the methods and materials that best suits their learning styles. Not everyone-child or adult- learns in the same way and limiting instruction to one method is handicapping to some children, as they will not learn as well as they could if that same information were just presented differently.
We work in a way to strengthen the areas they are weak in, and build upon the areas they are strong in to give them a good foundation.
Our lessons are generally completed by lunch time, giving us a lot more time than they would have if they were in a traditional school setting. That extra time allows them to participate in a variety of activities- church, 4H, Scouts, baseball, basketball. They take classes and are involved in community programs, we are members of a homeschool group that gets together for PE and field trips, etc.
That extra time also allows them to experience the real world by living in it. They accompany me to doctor’s appointments, the post office, the grocery store, the bank, etc. There, they socialize with the baby in the waiting room, the mail man, the old lady in line behind us, the teller, etc. They learn how things work in life, and often they ask questions of the doctor, mail man, etc. and learn new things.
A more frivolous pro is the fact that we can take vacations when we want, instead of being bound by a school schedule. This often means that we can go when the prices are better, crowds are less, weather is nicer…making it a more enjoyable experience.
I could go on, but you get the idea and like I said above-the pros and cons will vary from person to person. I hope you find the answer that is best for YOUR child, no matter which option that might be. BraxOwl
February 25th, 2010 at 3:51 am
Pros:No bad influence from other students, easier concentration and well you don’t have to waste gas to bring your son to school Cons:No friends,and you have to pay for home schooling. hope this helps. Ivan
February 28th, 2010 at 10:58 am
Most of the pros and cons have been listed, but I would would say the cons outweigh the pros in this instance, just because of my experience with homeschooled people I know.. most of them are completely socially awkward and don’t understand social norms or how to interact.
There’s a general assumption that homeschooled kids turn out more intelligent, but I don’t believe that to be the case at all. It all depends on the child’s schooling in general.
Whatever you do, if you homeschool your children, make sure they spend a decent amount of time in public school before switching to college… then again even that transition can be very difficult.
I know 3 kids who were homeschooled
1. Switched in and out of public and homeschooling. Understands being social, interacts well with others, and is extremely fun to be around
2. Only homeschooled, extremely religious as was not taught any other viewpoints to the point it can be offensive, often tells people they are going to go to hell, not understanding that this is not socially acceptable to say. Still a nice guy, but I pity him more than anything.
3. Completely socially awkward and out there. Doesn’t have many friends, not religious, just doesn’t speak to anyone.
I’m a college student and all of these kids are college aged. sarakinzz
March 3rd, 2010 at 7:59 pm
The positives are :
- They learn more
- Learn what they want to learn
Negatives are :
-Get separated by their friends.
- Dont get as much opportunities as other Children than go to School
But i would love to be home Schooled ! Loisan