I wanted to give you the inside scoop on homeschooling, and debunk a few myths.
Homeschool parents are organized. My husband is insanely organized. So I guess in our house you can be half right. I, however, am NOT. I pay more for a curriculum that will keep me organized. If not I would probably forget to teach my kid language arts for several weeks. Or have him writing 100 page thesis at age 7 while he had no clue had to add 3-digit numbers. (Thankfully he can do the adding. And if the thesis was about Minecraft he would happily complete that little task with a smile on his iron-golem loving little self.)
Homeschool parents know everything they will need to teach their kids. Nope. If you have stuck around here a bit you have seen plenty of grammar errors. I didn’t do them intentionally, they just slip through my fingers. If you get rewarded in life by finding comma splices, I urge you to get your daily dose and check out all my posts… I won’t let you down, Promise!!! One of the benefits of homeschooling is that we get to learn things over again, and again, and again, depending on how many kids you have.
Homeschool kids are shy. Meet a few homeschool kids and you will see they come in all shapes and sizes and they have a varying desire to talk to people. My son will stand quietly by and decide if he likes you or not before you get to see his real personality. He knows a thing or two about life and doesn’t have some naive belief that everyone that talks sweet to him is a good guy/gal. So you either take time to let him decide what he thinks about you or you get to pass him off as a shy homeschooled kid. My homeschooler will walk into his dr appointment and talk with the doctor about his ailments like he is a peer. He can sit at a table with adults and have no trouble having a “grown-up” conversation, so don’t discount him as “just a kid” cuz he can read you like he can read a Cat in the Hat book.
Homeschoolers can’t go to college because they don’t have a diploma. They will get a high school diploma. They will also wear a cap and gown & have a graduation. When my son finished kindergarten we had a graduation party. We had family come have cake and ice cream. He wore his cap & gown, stood on a table and recited “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. Homeschool kids are at a huge advantage. Many parents decide to dual-enroll their homeschoolers which means they are going to college courses while still in high school.
Homeschoolers don’t have a social life. This is the case for some homeschoolers. But there are still others that have a full social life. My son isn’t in a room of 20 other kids his age where he can make friends, but we don’t count this as a disadvantage. One day we may go to the zoo with a friend, the next day he may go to the park and make new friends. He is also in TaeKwonDo where he has made a couple of really good friends. There are many homeschool groups so I can assure you… homeschool kids are socialized. (When I was a kid I can’t tell you how many times I was told I was at school for learning and not socializing.)
And finally, homeschooling is easy. Some days are a breeze. Some days I take photos of our projects because they are fun and he does great with them. Some days it is tough. Some days he doesn’t want to do the work. Some days he begs to just not do math or “can we please only do computer school”. I have locked myself in the bathroom to have a moment to gather my thoughts. Some days I am envious at all the free time other moms have. Some days we will finish all of this school work in two hours. Some days it may take 5. My biggest surprise in homeschooling has been that there are bad days. We have days when my pupil is not motivated by anything I try. Some days he will go pick up his science book and start looking through it and teach me how space ships work. Some days he will sit down and finish a math sheet in 2 minutes. Some days the same math sheet could take 30 minutes. Some days he wants to do math first to get it out of the way. Some days he wants to finish all the fun stuff and do math last. Not only are all kids different, but the same kid may be different on Monday than on Tuesday. Knowing their special combination and unlocking their desire to learn is the key to the game.
There are certainly some easy aspects of homeschooling. The motivation to push through those bad days is that no one is going to care about his education and future as much as me. So even when he doesn’t want to listen to anymore stories about Queen Elizabeth I keep reading. It is also easy for us to meet our state requirements. Our required dates for school are easily met a few months before our deadline. We take a lot of field trips; museums, zoo, Paris, Helen, Ft Wayne, science festival, library activities, summer enrichment programs, robotic competition, and a wide variety of other activities. I find that he learns as much, if not more on field trips than days at home reading in a book.
Are there any homeschool myths you have heard that I left out?
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