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Fear
Apr 1, 2009 21:00:05 GMT -6
Post by Survivor on Apr 1, 2009 21:00:05 GMT -6
I just want everyone to notice something in the thread between myself and the student who is doing research on "homeschooling." He stated that he only has research from people who are for "homeschooling," and then put (parents). If kids were so thrilled with the experience, why do the parents always do the talking and talk about how great it is?
When I was growing up I was afraid to bash homeschooling, because I knew my parents would put some religious spin on it and tell me that I was being rebellious and anti-Christian. Even though they knew they were only doing homeschooling because they had so many kids, they couldn't get all of us where we needed to go if they tried. Isn't it amazing that so many parents decide they "love their kids enough to homeschool them" once they either have 3 or more kids, or their kids get in trouble in school?
I have seen so many start their kids in private school and then once they no longer want to pay the tuition for the 3rd or 4th child, they once again "love them enough" to "homeschool."
Amazingly, this is right about the time that the tuition costs overtake the mothers income. Pretty funny that I have never seen a mom with a 6 figure income "love" their kids enough to homeschool. So do rich people not "love" their children, or are people who homeschool their children just not that bright?
Go ahead get pissed, but at least be honest with yourself. If you want to do it, do it, but face the facts that it's not all about love.
AHHHHHHH that felt good. If no one else ever gets anything out of this site. I sure did.
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Fear
Dec 28, 2009 18:05:13 GMT -6
Post by AaronM on Dec 28, 2009 18:05:13 GMT -6
Yeah, my mother loved me enough to let me take care of my own education. I was basically raised by South Park, Jay-Z, and Google.
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Fear
Jan 24, 2010 15:17:22 GMT -6
Post by Jess on Jan 24, 2010 15:17:22 GMT -6
i know what you mean. i was homeschooled because my parents "loved me that much" and now that im a 26 year old adult i feel the results of it every day. wish they had put some effort into it, i guess my future wasnt important enough to get out of bed before 11am for, right mom?
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Fear
Jan 25, 2010 12:46:10 GMT -6
Post by Survivor on Jan 25, 2010 12:46:10 GMT -6
Now occasionally I did enjoy the 11am wake up, I have to admit. You are so right though, Jess that there is still hardly a day that goes by that it doesn't affect me somehow. Whether it is some weird hang up I have because I just don't know how to deal with a situation, or just day to day conversations where I am the joke of it because I never went to high school. Once people know you were homeschooled they almost feel the need to say something as if they accept you for the freak you are.
Freaks Rule!
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Fear
Feb 21, 2010 18:05:05 GMT -6
Post by Cmom on Feb 21, 2010 18:05:05 GMT -6
As a homeschooling mom, I'm sorry to hear that you all are feeling that your parents didn't really care enough about you to really teach you while you were homeschooled, or that they only homeschooled you because it was too expensive to send you to private school.
Also as a parent, I think that if I had three kids and couldn't send all of them to private school, I would feel bad if I only sent one or two. They also felt that it was a wiser choice to homeschoo as opposed to sending you to public school.
I had my first and only child at age 37- he's 6 now in kindergarten and I'm 43. My husband is an engineer at Cape Canaveral and I can tell you that I am not homeschooling my son because we can't afford to send him to private school!
I dreamed about homeschooling him 20 years before he was born and nothing made me happier than to have a child. I wanted to homeschool since several of my cousins homeschooled, and my sister homeschooled her kids until 3rd or 4th grade. Her advice to me was to take it one year at a time and see how my son feels about the experience as we go along, so that is my plan. I check in with him frequently to see how he's enjoying the experience and if there is anything I can do better. I'm doing this, after all, because I want him to have the best experiene he can have in life and the best oppotunities. If we homeschool, he won't be held back by other kids who don't learn as quickly, and we can travel. If there is something he doens't like, I will adjust and consider other options.
I and my husband were both bullied in school growing up, as it is a very common and traumatic thing to happen to children where there is a high ratio of children to teachers (public school), and we knew we wanted something better for our son. I do lots of field trips and spend lots of time with him.
My cousins' children have all gone through college and one has gone onto graduate school. MY sister's children who stopped homeschooling at 3rd and 4th grades (depending on child we're talking about) are both in college with academic scholarships.
Please find peace with your experience and move on when you can. We all have experiences we wish we could forget or do-over. If you had gone to public school, you woud have discovered that it wasn't all that.
And when you become parents, you will get to make your own set of mistakes! And your kids can get online and complain about you, too. OK, that was only meant as a half-joke, but I hope you understand what I'm saying. When I was 25, I complained about my parents in a different way, how clueless they were about other things, but now that I see how tough it is to be a parent, I have a totally different point of view.
PS. You are not freaks! This is a narrow way of viewing the world and if you are around people who treat you like this, enlarge your circle of friends and change your perspective of yourself.
You will find many more people who find that your homeschooling experience has made you a MORE interesting person with a unique perspective of the world. Public school is BORING, crowded, dangerous, and also the influences there often bring people down.
Realize your blessings and make something of yourselves.
Sincerely,
a mom
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Fear
Feb 22, 2010 12:20:57 GMT -6
Post by Survivor on Feb 22, 2010 12:20:57 GMT -6
Hey Cmom.
Wow, this is going to take a while. I appreciate your honesty, but also think you might want to look a little deeper at yourself based on what you wrote. I am going to go chronologically through your post.
We don't "feel" our parents didn't teach us. THEY DIDN'T. We don't need to be patronized. Whether or not they cared is an opinion.
Let's look at your facts: You told us that since you were 17 you were dreaming of homeschool your child because your cousins did. Please correct me if I am missing something, but that is what you said. Are your cousin and sister alot older than you?
You then say you are going to let your child determine his own future by letting this kindergartner decide what he thinks about his own education. My children have no choice in the matter of where or when they go to school. You and I have the life experiences. What makes you think that a kindergartner has the capability to make choices like that? He doesn't know any better, nor does he comprehend what the other options are. Are you waiting for the day when your six year old walks up to you and says, "Hi mommy, I want to leave today, I think I would like some other opportunities in life." How can he have any "opportunities" (as you call them) at home? Opportunities are unrealized potential. All that you can offer him are realized. You are what you are. If you want him to reach HIS potential, he needs a place to find them. At home he will only reach YOUR potential. What if some other kids learn quicker than him, and that pushes him to be better? At home you will never know.
Fortunately, you are new to homeschooling, so alot of the issues haven't come up that older homeschoolers deal with. I honestly don't even see much for the need of kindergarten in public schools, so I don't have major issues with keeping your child home that year.
The next thing you said is probably the most telling in your email. You and your husband were both bullied as children.... BINGO! Here we see the real reason: You had some issues as children that you clearly never dealt with. Either you never told your parents about it, and then didn't deal with it yourself, or your parents did nothing about it. Either way you are a prime candidate to homeschool your children. What ever happened to raising your children to be able to deal with adversity? How about walking through the trouble with them, so that when they encounter issues later (like you), they know how to deal with them without running away (unlike you). You are using the classic excuse of protecting, when it is clearly overprotecting, and a separation issue that you have with your child. He will develop the same separation problem later, but it will take a while.
So your sister who stopped homeschooling... Did she just happen to stop both of the children the same year? I suppose that they both simultaneously hit the right maturity level as the exact same time right? It wasn't that it was just inconvenient, and she went back to making money right? I don't buy it.
You point out moving on, and that is what we are doing here. It's therapeutic to be able to get this out and know that there are others like us out there.
It's funny that you think you are talking to a bunch of teenagers. Although here are some teens on the site, I am in my 30's, have multiple children, and make six figures. I thought my parents were clueless growing up, and guess what... I still do. The sad thing is that they still won't own up to being bad parents when it came to education. It isn't tough being a parent. It's called life. Life is tough. I love my kids and do what's best for them. Not what they or I want to make my life easier. You have a different point of view now because you are trying to justify your shortcomings. I did that for a while, but that is what I rose above. I made something of myself without having to rely on my parents.
You point out making your circle of friends larger. Have you read the site at all? Homeschoolers hang around homeschoolers, and sometimes that is all they are allowed to hang around. We weren't allowed to experience life or have different kinds of friends. Most of us went to public school at some point. I guess this was during some of the years our parents didn't love us as much. I loved it, and even though not all would say that, they all say they liked being around kids their own age.
Public school is only boring if you make it that. You obviously were a scared person that didn't venture out of their comfort zone much. As for bad influences, you can go any way you want. My daughter is a leader at her school. People are attracted to that. Others follow her. If you want to follow the bad examples, they are there no question. But if you want to be a good parent, and show your child how to be a good person, they can be a shining light anywhere they are.
So to imply that I haven't made something of myself is absurd. I have multiple college degrees, a great family, and a great life. Don't get me wrong, though, I am a freak. I have never felt like I fit in anywhere except when I get around my homeschooled friends. They just know where I came from. GO FREAKS! I love you all.
My advice to you is help your child rise above what was wrong with your childhood. Don't protect him from it.
Survivor
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Fear
Feb 22, 2010 13:35:25 GMT -6
Post by homeschooled on Feb 22, 2010 13:35:25 GMT -6
Way to go Survivor!!! You hit the nail on the head. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Cmom, The issue you brought up of not wanting to send only one of the siblings to private school is irrelevant. Having gone to public school, private school and home school, I'm speaking from experience. I'm in my 30's and I have decided from the beginning to NEVER home school my kids but to send my children to school. To make the decision at 17 to home school your kids is ridiculous, especially after letting your personal issues influence you and waiting far another 20 years to do so. Be an example for your son. Teach him what the real world is like, how to adjust, and how to become stronger, not hide away. I grew up with a bunch of other home schoolers who regularly got together, but that was not healthy socializing, and today we ALL feel the same way and send all our kids to school. There are no goals or incentives to attain to and feel proud of if you know of nothing else. I suggest you talk to a few more home schooled students and LISTEN to their feelings on the issue, not their parents, because you obviously already agree with the parents side. This a serious decision, not to be made lightly.
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Fear
Apr 11, 2010 6:54:23 GMT -6
Post by MGRAYPACERS31 on Apr 11, 2010 6:54:23 GMT -6
Homeschooling isn't for everybody, I think we can all agree. There are those families who have no business homeschooling their children and for those kids I am truly sorry. However, there are situations where homeschooling is the best option. In my case, it wasn't that my parents couldn't afford public school- it was that they didn't want to allow the crap being taught in public schools to be taught to us. I was homeschooled from kindergarten through 12th grade, and never felt stunted or cheated that I didn't get to go to public school. My parents didn't hide me away from society, either. Through elementary school and junior high we did many activities and field trips with other homeschoolers. Once in high school, I played high school sports early on with a local Christian school, and then my last three years played on homeschool teams. I went on to college and graduated with a BA in History. I never felt socially stunted because of homeschooling, because my parents did it right. And that's the key. To paint homeschooling with a broad brush and say because of your experience it's wrong and should be banned is wrong, just like it would be wrong of me to say that in every situation homeschooling is the best option, because it most obviously isn't. But I think parents should have the right to choose whether or not to homeschool their kids, because I do not want to see the day when decisions for our children are made by the government and not by the parents. I've seen the crap being called education being put out there by the public school system, and to be honest it makes me sick. No wonder our country no longer leads the world in graduation rates. Makes me glad my parents were concerned enough about me to give me a proper education.
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Fear
Dec 22, 2013 20:52:12 GMT -6
Post by lauren on Dec 22, 2013 20:52:12 GMT -6
im homeschooled and im tired of crying every day i keep telling my parents i have no friends and i NEED public school and it always seems to fall on a deaf ear im soo sick of it u would be amazed at what id do to go to a public school. excuse my language but damn
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Fear
Oct 4, 2014 23:32:56 GMT -6
Post by alianne on Oct 4, 2014 23:32:56 GMT -6
I'm sure if anyone reads this in the future, they're probably tired of reading my posts (I posted as a Guest before), but I promise this will be the last one for a while, lol. To put it really simply, I'm awestruck another parent said that a young child can choose to homeschool themselves, because that's exactly what our parents told my brother and I. That a 4-5 yr old, and an 8 yr old, were capable of choosing to homeschool, because they "didn't want to be in public school". I agree with Survivour, that parents say that because of thier own issues, but what I wanted to add was that our parents said that because THEY were afraid of my brother and I going to public school, because of their anxiety disorders. But, they didn't want to take responsibility for making that choice in case things went wrong, so they said a barely graduated Kindergartner and a 2nd grader, "chose" it.
I'm in my twenties now, and it's so obvious to me that the real truth was that neither of them wanted to be blamed in the future for when my brother and I had issues, and so they both decided that we would be "self taught" to an extent, so that no one could blame them. It's almost funny now, except for the fact that my brother and I missed so much in life, all because of our parents selfishness and dishonesty. SO: If you're a kid reading this in the future, don't let your parents blame you for being homeschooled or unhappy. They're grown adult people, and they know the consequences of what they chose to do. It just doesn't mean that they'll actually take responsiblity for it.
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