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He seems to think that at one point the kid will not care and just sit and be a vegetable.
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kids who have been in school all of their lives and suddenly change to homeschooling do sometimes go through a period like this while the shift gears. It can take months, or even a year or two if the kid is older and has been acquired an institutional mindset. Eventually they mkove beyond that, and never-schooled kids do not do that at all. It's pretty boring to sit around being a vegetable. I've never heard of a study about when homeschooled kids become independant of their parents, but my guess would be that it is earlier than schooled kids. They frequently take college courses, and have more time to potentially get a job during their high school years, both of which would lead to earlier independeance, not later. There are not very many homeschooling parents of high schoolers who would be willing to do the kind of pre-digesting that school teachers do. By that time, the kids have either become pretty independant academically, which leads to independance in other arenas, or else the family has decided that the child needs to be in a more structured educational environment.</p>
<p>rather than bringing up all of these theoretical problems and asking if they are valid, you, or your friend, or whomever it is who is toying with the idea of homeschooling, should simply read one of the Grace Llewellyn books.</p>
<p>You're probably right to think that homeschooled kids would be more dependent on their parents. But in school they would be more dependent on their peers. So which do you think would lead to a more mature outlook at a younger age? Also, are strong family ties a bad thing? Most homeschoolers value strong family ties. </p>
<p>I'm in my 10th year of homeschooling. All you need, in my opinion, is a library and home computer/internet--and a parent willing to take on an unpaid, full-time job--that's the hard part. By high school kids pretty much become independent learners because parents can't be experts in everything. Just give them the resources they need and
prep them for the tests and they'll probably do better than if they'd been in school for 12 years. My 1st son has been homeschooled since 3rd grade. We've moved a number of times, including twice in his HS years, so homeschooling helped maintain continuity. Now, going into his senior year, he's thinking of enrolling in a few HS AP classes
(science labs) so he can meet other kids and get used having a "schedule" before college. Though I'm essentially an unschooler, I still think a college degree is necessary for most jobs and I expect all my (7) kids to go to college. Some homeschoolers don't do well, but in those cases I've seen personally--either the parents are not that well educated/resourceful and don't expect much of the kid, or the kid has a learning disability that was not being addressed in school, so the parents decided the child would do better at home.</p>
<p>"rather than bringing up all of these theoretical problems and asking if they are valid, you, or your friend, or whomever it is who is toying with the idea of homeschooling, should simply read one of the Grace Llewellyn books."</p>
<p>Hey, you can read one of mine! ;) (I'm sharing a program with Grace in Minneapolis on October 1 - pm me for details.)</p>
<p>I read a post on aol message boards from someone that said their daughter was unschooled and couldn't read until she was 9 and is currently on a 5th grade math level at 13 years old. :X Ehhhhhhhh</p>
<p>burnsk8ter - see if you can get it from interlibrary loan. Your library may have also have other relavant books under multiple spellings - try home schooling, homeschooling, home education, etc. Also try looking by author's name John Holt. He is better known than Grace Llewellyn. Most libraries would have some of his books, and that should put you in the right general area on the shelves. His stuff won't be as useful as Grace Llewellyn's since it's fairly dated, plus geared towards much younger kids than high school age. Also check out some of the thousands of sites on the internet related to homeschooling.</p>
<p>Try to look at the Teenage Liberation Handbook at a bookstore, if you can't get it on interlibrary loan. You can get at least some ideas from just purusing it at the store. It's $13 on Amazon, if you are interested in buying it after you see it. If you decide to try homeschooling, you'll need to have a least some money for books and materials.</p>
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I read a post on aol message boards from someone that said their daughter was unschooled and couldn't read until she was 9 and is currently on a 5th grade math level at 13 years old.
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<p>Scary!! PArents, would you say that by the time the child gets to highschool age they are all "caught up"? Because what bluealien said is scary!</p>
<p>Yes, there are different homeschoolers as well as different public schoolers. Yes, I also heard about a kid who was watching TV all day long, and his parents called that "homeschooling"... So yes, it is possible for a kid to do nothing - but I never saw it myself in the real life, somehow they WANT to learn given the choice. But well, at least in this case the parents can change the situation if they want to.</p>
<p>In my S's class at public school there were several kids who couldn't read in 8th grade - well, they could technically - they were given Dr. Seuss books (no, they were not special ed kids). I don't think at 9 they were much better than that homeschooled girl.</p>
<p>BTW, a friend of mine was told by a teacher in a Waldorf school: "Don't worry if your daughter can't read at 8, she will definitely learn by the age of 12". The friend did not like the idea of non-reading for 4 more years, so he transfered the kid to a regular school. But... actually, Waldorf system gives impressive results, and I think there are many ways to raise an educated child.</p>
<p>Waldorf system? Is that in one of mini's books or something? </p>
<p>Anyway, I thought about it. THere are a lot of kids in public school even who can't read. >_< So maybe I'm just overreacting.</p>
<p>So here's another question. How did you guys get over the fear of this out-of-the-norm system of education? Did your spouse agree that unschooling was a good idea or did you have to convince him/her?</p>
<p>Kids are different. I know that's not news on this board! But some home schooled kids will learn slowly and some faster. In general, if a parent can home school, or if the child has the temperment for unschooling, they have more opportunities than they will have had elsewhere.</p>
<p>But, it's not for every one or every kid.</p>
<p>We home schooled our 4 from the beginning. The oldest, 18, is a National Merit Scholar and will leave in a month to go to the University of Arizona on a full academic scholarship to double major in Physics and Astronomy. </p>
<p>The second, 15, enrolled in the local public school last year to take the IB program...home schooling was not working anymore mainly because of personality issues.</p>
<p>The third, 14, is at least one year behind in most subjects and has definite learning disabilities. When we had her tested a couple years ago the people were amazed that she could read and do math as well as she does. She took much longer to learn to read than our other 3 and has to work harder at almost all academic levels. However, she is creative and artistic and much more popular with friends than our other 3...she will do fine in life.</p>
<p>Our 4th, 10, is obviously bright in math but hates writing...we will see.</p>
<p>All that is to say that one should not take anecdotal evidence to see if home schooling or unschooling is for you and your child. If you want to give your child academic freedom and are willing to dedicate a considerable amount of your own time to your child's education than go for it!</p>
<p>Atleast your 15 year old is getting an IB education. I am too and I think its a much better alternative to regular classes if you're going to be doing public school.</p>
<p>So JVD, did both you and your spouse already like the idea of homeschooling or did you have to do some convincing? It seems like its hard. I can't get my friend to go along with it. I can only imagine how hard it'd be to get your husband/wife to go along with it using yalls own child!</p>
<p>Actually, I was a teacher in a private school when our first started to come close to school age. I had taught several years before in local public schools, so we were familiar with both.</p>
<p>My wife was not impressed with either choice and started to look into home schooling. We sent her to a pre-school for a couple months and noticed more negative learned behavior than anything else so my wife just started teaching her at home. Of course, we were lucky with her, we had no idea that we had someone on our hands who was so quick and eager to learn. </p>
<p>That encouraged my wife to decide to try it with each child as they came along. I did little of the teaching myself...I was busy teaching other people's kids! </p>
<p>I could see how well my wife was doing so I went along with it. We always agreed that we would just take it year by year and see how things went. The first priority was to try to give our children the best education that we could and if it wasn't working at home we would look elsewhere. I was willing to try it and gradually became sold.</p>
<p>I would say, if someone is actively against it, it should not be done.</p>
<p>"I read a post on aol message boards from someone that said their daughter was unschooled and couldn't read until she was 9 and is currently on a 5th grade math level at 13 years old. :X Ehhhhhhhh"</p>
<p>Hate to belabor the obvious, but you've just described roughly 40% of the in-school population. (So meanwhile, what were each doing with their time?)</p>
<p>Parents of young children make sure that there aren't any glaring holes. As they get older, students take on more of the responsibility themselves. By high school age, all kids should be mature enough to make goals for themselves, and can understand that they have to do things they do not enjoy in order to reach them.</p>