Do family or friends oppose your homeschooling?

[LeftyMom]

I'm pretty lucky because even though we have a million teachers on my side of the family the closest thing we've got to a critical comment about our intent to homeschool LeftyKid was when grandmother said she feels it's best not to homeschool during the high school years. She was reassured a bit when I said he could do concurrent enrollment in community college or take some classes at a private or charter school, when the time comes.

Some of LeftyDad's relatives (more retired teachers) are more critical, but the live a zillion miles away anyhow.

I'm curious to know how you handle opposition, in case any crops up as LeftyKid approaches Kindergarten age.

[k8conant]

1. My husband "RightWingDad" hates it

but I keep on doing it. We just started at the beginning of February (homeschooling my 12-year-old daughter) I found out that she had already learned all the math and we're doing algebra now.

I talked to several relatives last weekend in Tennessee (we're in West Virginia) and they seemed to have no problem whatsoever.

RWD seems to think there'll be huge problems with socialization (as if that were the purpose of school!). He cites one case of a kid who was homeschooled entirely up until college: he didn't like the kid or the parents and thinks all kids turn out like that because of homeschooling.

We'll see.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

2. Interesting...Yesterday, as I walked my homeschooler through the zoo

I overheard a couple of women with strollers discussing the horrors of homeschooling...how the kids don't benefit from the company of other kids, and meeting/working with other adults.

I bit my tongue. I didn't say, "Excuse me, but that's bullshit." But I was sorely tempted. The drama classes, swimming lessons, piano lessons, and other activities we have him involved with more than make up for the potty language he'd learn in the schoolyard and the "social skills" picked up from a silent lunch.

My older boy had some rocky times with homeschooling; and worse times with public school. I'm not suggesting that my teaching style was flawless, and he did have good experiences with a few of the teachers in the schools he attended.

But the fact is, I know my kids better than the school system does. The best experiences my son had were with teachers who recognized and respected that, and worked with me...listening to what I had to say, and informing me of their observations. And that's what schools should be about, rather than this constant blame game between parents, teachers, administrators, and government officials. Everybody's so busy blaming each other, and putting pressure on kids to outperform other school systems that the individual kids get lost in a jungle of ratings, polls, tests, and more tests. No wonder teens suffer from anxiety and depression in increasing numbers!

My 6 year old attended private nursery school and kindergarten classes with no more than 12 kids at a time. I use the Calvert School program with him, and he's happy and proud of the good work he's doing. I'm not interested in grading his work; I only want him to find learning is a joy. Oftentimes, I'll change his lesson to incorporate whatever he might suddenly be interested in. Our zoo trip yesterday was a last minute decision spawned by his fascination with a story he read about the tropical rain forest. His task was to find as many rain forest creatures as he could. He had a blast!

When someone gives you a hard time about homeschooling your child, you might remind them that Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln were all homeschooled, and didn't suffer socially because of it.

[mzmolly]

3. School is NOT socialization. Kid's are told if and when they can speak to

other children. Ususally their told to be quite while the teacher speaks. :eyes:

My daughter has much more enriching social experiences with people of all ages, which is more beneficial for her.

[mopinko]

4. the s word

just remember when people talk about socialization, they don't mean making friends, and learning real world social skills. what they mean is "what do you mean that you are not accepting input from the 'tribe' about how to raise you kid?" and "where will they learn to follow order and be good little soldiers?" this, they do learn in school. i always said that what happens in schools is anti-socialization.
i didn't get too much grief, but i had some in-laws that gave me the same 3rd degree every x-mas (the only time we see them)- don't they have to take tests, don;t you have to register with the state, don't they give you books that you are supposed to use, etc, etc. and of course, we heard the s word a million times. i think in the 8 years we did it, i met, like 2 people who did not bring this up in the first 20 seconds of the conversation.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

5. It's amazing how the notion's been hammered into people's heads

I wonder if it wasn't used to sell public education in the first place. At one time there was probably as much concern about children leaving home to learn as there is now about having them stay home. I wouldn't be surprised if "social skills" was a catch-phrase used to counter 19th-early 20th century parents who felt the only "larnin'" their kids needed was in the Bible.

[mopinko]

6. personally, i think it goes way deeper

it is just too wide spread and visceral for it to be anything but instinctive.
i look at it, as i do so many of the quandaries of human behavior, through the lens of evolutionary biology. not that i know all that much about the subject, but it all makes a huge amount of sense to me.
so, my theory is this- that part of the trade-off of tribal life was a certain amount of input into people's child rearing practices. and a certain acceptance of the tribe's rights to directly interact or discipline each other's kids. this seems to me to be a sensible system.
i think that hs offends this balance. i also think this has something to do with hatred of children in restaurants.
i have nothing really to back up this theory. but i think it has to be something very deep.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

7. LOL

"hatred of children in restaurants"

But consider that most kids were homeschooled in this country until the 19th century. What made people suddenly turn against the notion?

And look at "socialization" in our history, which consisted mainly of church activities; or in rural areas, people helping each other with farm chores...barn raisings, quilting bees, shucking parties and such. What made people decide that in order to socialize, they needed a public school education?

Something had to jolt people from their comfort zone to want to send their kids to school...

[mopinko]

8. it was hard

that is why we have compulsory attendance laws. that is what it took.
i think that, all in all, there are a lot of things about the family structure that are out of sync with our psychological evolution. i don't know the history that well myself, but i think it would be a really fascinating aspect of it to look at.
if you have never read anything about this topic, i would recommend "the moral animal" by robert wright. he writes to the average reader, and this book is very readable and enjoyable. right now i am reading his latest, "non-zero". also interesting, much to chew on.

i just was always struck by the visceral nature of this argument, and the fact that you could rattle off a hundred activities that your kid was involved in, and it never made a dent. the handful of people who didn't start the conversation with the s-word usually turned out to have been bullied or abused in school. more consistency in this than anything i have ever seen.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

9. Well I won't mention names,

but I noticed precisely what you're talking about in a recent thread here on DU (not in the homeschool group). I found it pretty shocking, considering our typical attitude of "If it works for you, do it."

[coffeenap]

10. I noticed this too. Then I posted in the lounge--

what do you do when you find out a progressive friend is really full of
prejudice?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

12. Just stay the course, and hope they'll come around

when they see your example.

I can understand a little of their skepticism. After all, many who homeschooled in the last 20 years did so because they wanted their kids to get a "Christian" education (ie: no Darwin). Many of these same people did all they could to keep their children from socializing with children whose parents were of different religions/non-religions, races, or political leanings.

As homeschoolers, we're lucky that we can be finely tuned to our kids' individual academic and social needs, and be able to meet them in ways that teachers of large classrooms could never attempt without neglecting the "norm" of their group. On the negative side, we don't have supervisors to suggest that we try things differently; so we have to constantly check our own work, and deal with our own criticism.

[Shrek]

11. Interesting hypothesis

And it does make sense.

I have a slightly different take. After 8 years of home-schooling, I've found that those who harp on the S-word tend to fall into one of two broad categories: either they're grandparents (or of the same generation) for whom home-schooling is an alien concept and offends their sense of tradition, or they're parents of school-age children who feel threatened because they believe (or suspect) that you've made a superior choice.

The former I can deal with, because with a little information and exposure they usually come around pretty easily. I've even seen them become enthusiastic advocates if they notice that the kids are more polite and less afflicted with some of the pathologies that plague kids at public schools.

It's the latter group that drives me nuts. A lot of them know, in their heart-of-hearts, that home-schooling might be a better option for their own kids, but they won't consider it because it might entail some reordering of priorities or personal sacrifice of some kind. But they see others doing it, so they defensively lash out at imaginary drawbacks like the S-word. We all know it's nonsense but it gives them a rationalization for holding on to the status quo.