<p>My mom homeschooled me through the 5th grade. I started "real school" in the 6th grade at the same private school I will graduate from this year. I am very grateful for the excellent education my mom gave me in elementary school. I found that the social transition wasn't bad at all. If homeschooling parents get their kids involved in rec sports leagues or other social activities like mine did, "social weirdness" isn't a problem.</p>
<p>for you ps people, i'd like to iterate that you can't possibly know how much i appreciate being homeschooled. likely the only homeschoolers you notice are the awkward ones who dress like pilgrims and are in fact, socially inept. however, these people also attend your schools, but you're not lobbying the schools to change them.</p>
<p>the rest of us may blend in (see facebook group: I smile when someone says they never would guess that I was homeschooled)</p>
<p>again, if you've never been homeschooled and are for some reason against it, shut the hell up until you've tried it for a year.</p>
<p>good luck in college home school people</p>
<p>I left regular school for a charter school program called Opportunities for Learning at the end of 7th grade (I left one week before graduating on to 8th haha). I would probably be some loser if I kept on in regular school. I'm sooo glad I found OFL. I'm all A's, finishing high school a year early, and I'm taking college classes. And yes, it was my decision to leave. I remember before I left, I wanted to be in a band. I didn't even know how to play an instrument! Since getting back on the straight and narrow, I want to major in computer science and minor in political science.</p>
<p>My sister took her d out of school in 3rd grade b/c teacher was reading the RL Stine horror books to the kids (in 3rd grade, can you believe it??!!). She homeschooled her d and let her stay involved in the soccer and basketball. D wanted to go to hs for her jr and sr years. She played hs basketball and was the class president and valedictorian. Noone could accuse her of being weird or socially inept. </p>
<p>BTW, my sis barely got a 900 on her SAT when she was in school, she raised and educated a brilliant d who got a 1525 on the old SAT. So, it can be done and done well.</p>
<p>Those of you saying you learn better because you know what you need to learn, you must have all been much more mature than I was. At 14, I claimed that I will never care for medieval history again in my life. Had I been homeschooled, would I have been allowed to omit things that I found dull/useless? Did I know better than a teacher?</p>
<p>1525? wow, so she was homeschooling before 94?</p>
<p>worth2try, when i was too young to know what i should've learned, my mom just had me follow the standard stuff for 5th or 6th grade.</p>
<p>however, as i started becoming interested in educational methods/pedagogy, my parents let me take control of my own education.</p>
<p>of course, not all people study up on what are the best educational resources and are not capable of self-directed learning</p>
<p>I pulled my daughter out of public school in 4th grade because her teacher was horrible. As a couple of examples of horrible... he threw a desk at a student, when a student asked a question about an assignment the teacher went into a closet pulled out a road safety cone and put it on the child's head as a dunce cap... etc... The administration would not do anything to correct this, or allow us to change classes, so we pulled her out.</p>
<p>As an parent who was totally unprepared to take on this task, it meant a lot of work for me to come up with a good strategy. In some ways it worked very well, and in others I bombed!</p>
<p>In math, this 4th grade teacher was teaching them addition and subtraction by some method counting the knuckles on your hand... I never got this, but during the 1/2 year I taught her she excelled in a way we never expected and she learned everything she would be shown until she reached basic Algebra 1. She was very proud of this accomplishment.</p>
<p>In English, vocab went well, writing was so-so, and reading was good.</p>
<p>History was fun for us both, we did the middle ages and I found some great material so we learned how people lived each day, what their clothes were like, their houses, their food, and heck... even where they went to the bathroom. She ended up loving this. Then we went into the American Indians, and she found certain groups of them fascinating. </p>
<p>Science, I totally bombed out here. I tried following the curriculum that the school used, and they studied rocks, formation, etc... and we tried to identify what type of rock we found, and could not do it. Then we went into plants and trees, and I don't think we could identify an oak or a maple... Once again, horrible!</p>
<p>She did another science thing at an outdoor camp once a week, and also at a science center they had a once a week thing for homeschooled kids. This probably was a better option than me teaching her anything about science.</p>
<p>She also did an outside art class, and continued taking gymnastics. The school would not allow her to participate in any after school activities.</p>
<p>I sent her back to school for 5th grade when I knew she would not have the same teacher and they gave her a great teacher. They also had to put her in an advanced math group as she had already learned it all already. This teacher helped her w/her writing better than I could. For some reason she would accept his criticism, but not mine. Must be a mother/daughter thing!</p>
<p>When she went back she was relaxed and confident, and actually did not want to go back, she would have liked to be home schooled for another year, but as an only child I thought it best to be with her peers.</p>
<p>There are lots of reasons to homeschool, and lots of styles of doing it. I was very structured and we had certain expectations each day. Other parents would let them play with Legos each day and call it learning. You will find some kids are self motivated and others are not. It can be a great option for parents and children.</p>
<p>Are there any "friggin weird" kids in your high school? If so, I wonder why just being in the traditional school environment doesn't correct that? There are certainly plenty of socially experienced kids around them to help out. High school certainly does offer an interesting social experience!</p>
<p>The previous message was meant for Corraborator. Sorry for the sarcasm. Good for anyone who dares to think out of the box for their child. I did it for my D. for high school. Sometimes, when the only system you have is a public school that is an uncreative and limiting bureaucracy and your child needs to bloom - it's worth the risk. And it can be a great success.</p>
<p>haha. funny as I just wrote a personal essay for my writing class about this. My education has gone much like this.
a) Montessori ages 3-9
b) public school 10
c) 10-13 homeschool
d)13-15 public school
e) 16-18 private all girl's boarding school
d) 19 college!</p>
<p>I loved A, C , E because I was always learning from experience and always had control over my education. It's really shaped the way I learned and now I find that I get bored easily in college and can't do much about it right now.</p>
<p>I was homeschooled until 8th grade and I wanted to keep going for another year, but my parents wanted me to have a year under my belt before going to public high school. I loved waking up late and starting in my pajamas and finishing generally around noon. I was not self motivated for the sake of learning... like many of future peers, I was more interested in getting from point A to point B in the efficient way possible. My parents knew I had this tendency and would try to counteract it (with some modest success). As for socialization, I hung out with my kids in my neighborhood, other homeschoolers, church friends, and others I met through various ECs (gymnastics, basketball, etc.). My parents were very intent on my brother and I getting a good social experience.</p>
<p>When I started "regular" school in 8th grade, I had a bit of a rough time adjusting. The days seemed very long and some of the teachers seem to move so slow. By 9th grade I was fully adjusted, had a great group of friends (new and old), finished as valedictorian, received a top 1% standardized test score, varsity letters in two sports for three years, and admitted to some Top 25 universities.</p>
<p>My brother has a reading disability and would have tanked in a traditional school setting. He's bright, but has a problem in a certain area. Homeschooling served a different purpose for him. He also started back in 8th grade and is just finishing his sophomore year at a private school with a 3.9GPA. He still has the reading problem, but has learned to compensate and is confident in his abilities.</p>
<p>One thing I learned was how to teach myself from a text book. Of course, this is more helpful in some classes than others... profs are necessary no matter what. This has proved to be very helpful as a first year college student. I'm somewhat surprised that some pretty smart students lack this skill... and I'm in a competitive program at a Top 25 university.</p>
<p>Also, for any fans of The Waterboy with Adam Sandler, it's funny to be able to say, "I was hooome-schooooled" to your friends in college. It also reminds them that we don't all look and dress like the winners of the National Spelling Bee.</p>
<p>I think home-schooled students definitely have the ability and time to learn a lot more than they would if you just stuck them in a public/private school. Individual attention, move at your own pace, cover the basics adequately before moving on to more advanced topics--how could it not be successful? At least if you do it right, and "right" is different for every student. </p>
<p>However, the reason a lot of parents homeschool is because they are religious and want to keep their kids in a sheltered environment safe from non-religious people. If that's the case, then the extra educational value that comes from homeschooling may or may not exist because the parent is only homeschooling for religious reasons, and not to give their child a better education. </p>
<p>Myself, if tomorrow I suddenly was 30 years old and had a 5 year old, I would either homeschool until at least seventh grade or possibly to the end of middle school, OR, I would send my kid to a bilingual immersion school, because that just sounds cool. Since that's not really relevant to this discussion, I'll just say that along with the homeschooling I would add in recreational sports, art classes, music lessons, maybe some extra outside tutoring to get a different perspective than just myself. I would definitely try as much as possible to expose my kid to other children, different world views, etc.etc. (I'm not religious nor have I ever been homeschooled btw) Oh yes, one way I plan to do that is to host a foreign exchange student at least once, which would probably open up a whole new world. However, I wouldn't homeschool during high school, just because it makes college applications that much more complicated. But if you homeschool right, I believe your kid should be ahead of the high school pack...</p>
<p>Commenting on the discussion above, none of the homeschool kids that I've met seem to be socially challenged. Of course, I see it easily happening if the parent doesn't have them hang out with other kids, etc. But that problem can probably be avoided.</p>
<p>hahahaha. nice story. i have three nieces, and sometimes i feel that they aren't pushed to the best of their abilities at school and i'm not sure they're being taught the necessary skills for developing good scholarship in the long run. so, i took it upon myself to teach them whatever i can whenever they're over about twice a week. i constantly find 'enrichment' activities to apply with them and i know they will appreciate this in the future. last year, i realized how little my parents dealt with my education and felt that i could've excelled at many areas had they just given me that push. so i guess this is why i find this issue of particular importance to me, some people even tell me i try to live vicariously through them haha. they still attend school, but if it was decided that they be homeschooled, i would fully support that decision. i have a big family, so socializing with people in the same age group wouldn't be a problem for them. and despite so, they are part of many activities (ballet, gymnastics, etc) and everyday, they're interested in more things. they key is finding things outside of the home to be involved in, so being socially retarded wouldn't be an issue we'd worry about. i admire those parents who take steps into advancing their child's education and realize how important it is. anyone should be so responsible.</p>
<p>It's not a generalization it's just been my own personal experience.</p>
<p>I was homeschooled from the half of kindergarten through 5th grade. During 6th grade, I attended a large private school, then returned to homeschooling for 7th grade. For 8th-current (11th grade), I have attended a small private high school. My junior year wasy the first year that I got to choose if I wanted to continue going to my current school or switch to another. Before that, I had no choice, so that would be the reason why I was homeschooled.</p>
<p>I think a person's social skills depend on that person's particular experience and surroundings. It also depends on what other activities they are involved in. I, for example, ended up a total social retard after getting out of homeschooling because I simply had no other activities I was involved in. During 6th grade, I got involved with horseback riding and began to open up, but until that point, I was extremely reserved and had almost no outside contact. My family even did church at home, and fraternizing with the neighbors was unacceptable. Now, if my parents had made me do more activities and get out of the house more, I probably would have been perfectly fine. However, being locked up in a house with my two older brothers for company (who were also homeschooled) had some... interesting and extremely negative results.</p>
<p>However, on the positive side of things, I excelled in school. Although my curriculum was very weak in subjects other than Math and English (I had to do often 60 problems of math a day for every day of the week while I had no history, science, or other classes), I was extremely good in school when I stopped homeschooling. I do feel that I missed out on a lot of history and science, but I caught on very quickly and was incredible in Math and English.</p>
<p>Also, I feel that somehow homeschooling changed my personality in positive ways. I turned out to be extremely introspective, a perfectionist, and I love helping everyone out. While most people really could care less about what you have to say, I generally listen and care about what other people are saying. The only reason I mention this is because I really do feel it had something to do with my homeschooling experience. My brothers, in that respect, are the same way. The only negative thing about this aspect is that we (my brothers and I) were shocked at first when we would lament to others and not get a satisfactory response. After a while, this wore off, although still at times we can be shocked by how rude/uncaring people can be. I also noticed I fell prey to the manipulation games of those around me my first year in private school; hence, why I returned to homeschooling for another year before I could work that out. I still find myself easily manipulated at times due to my lack of cynicism, and although this might sound like a good thing, it really is a bad thing.</p>
<p>So yes, there are both positive and negative outcomes of homeschooling. I feel that it had a very negative affect on my social skills, but I have overcome this by now. People generally like me, saying that I am very kind, a good listener, and have good manners. I am outgoing enough, although I will probably always lean towards introverted as opposted to extroverted. I will probably always have to deal with my shyness, and the things some people do still shock me while other people think its perfectly normal. I suppose it really depends on the circumstances, though. I think I would have been just as outgoing as anyone else had I been exposed to sports or some other type of activity earlier in life.</p>
<p>exactly...it's important to be involved with activities outside of the 'homeschool' if one is centered in the environment described above. only then, can you at least be on par with most students your age in terms of social skills -- i feel.</p>
<p>Home-schooled kids lack knowledge of the social dynamic.</p>
<p>If home-schooled kids lack knowledge of a social dynamic, it's because somebody around them is doing something wrong by them. It's not an inherent state of home-schooling.</p>
<p>I agree. I was home-schooled through 5th grade and lacked no social skills when I went to a private school. If the kids lack social skills, it's the parents fault for not having them involved in sports or other social settings. Home-schooling does not automatically make you socially inept.</p>