WriterGig wrote:

I often wonder if there are other formerly-homeschooled adults out there. Homeschooling was relatively unheard of when I was in school, but the numbers today are huge.

I wrote a very short hub about being hoemschooled. Curious if there's anyone else on here who was, too?

My main concern would be in regards to social aspects, and restricting your children's ability to form their own beliefs and ideas.

vrajehrc wrote:

WriterGig wrote:

I often wonder if there are other formerly-homeschooled adults out there. Homeschooling was relatively unheard of when I was in school, but the numbers today are huge.

I wrote a very short hub about being hoemschooled. Curious if there's anyone else on here who was, too?

...and restricting your children's ability to form their own beliefs and ideas.

I'm just curious how homeschooling would necessarily restrict a child's own beliefs and ideas more than public schooling? The public school is very big on conformity and can't possibly teach a very wide set of beliefs and ideas because they have so many kids to get the message through to.

I am not sure whether universities accept homeschooled children, not here in my country. The matter with homeschooling is not only socialization but also teamworking.

wychic wrote:

Done! I've published a more detailed story of my experiences as a homeschooled student...I'm pretty new here, is it permissible to post links in the forums? I'll leave the link out for now just in case it's not allowed, but it's pretty easy to find the right one amongst all four of my hubs

If it's done in good taste, there's nothing wrong with posting a link to your hub!  It's certainly on topic!

I was homeschooled for one year only.  During that year I was able to get a year ahead in both math and English!  It was rewarding academically, but it's hard to develop socially.  I think it's all what you (and your parents/tutors/family) make it!  If they sign you up for other activities, such as soccer, karate, etc. you'll be better off.  If I had done it for years more, I think I would have had a hard time socially in the long term.

I attended a shool regularly and never homeschooled.Homeschooling is not a good choice without some major problem.A child develops really among the other children and a good home training is enough for him to choose a good company of friends.

My best friend was homeschooled. She is friendly and outgoing, not at all shy or introverted. I think a lot of people place stereotypes on homeschooled kids. I have seen some homeschooled children that are terribly shy and have trouble in social settings. But I believe it's because the parents didn't do enough to socialize them with other kids when they were young. That's important.

I have two kids in high school, one home-schooled and one not. My home schooled son enrolled in an online high school where he had "real" teachers and an accredited, college-prep curriculum but he fit his schoolwork in around things that mattered more to him like computers and his job. My daughter loves everything about "regular" school, but we did have to find the one that suited her best (far away, expensive and fantastic.)  My message is to LISTEN to your children and figure out what suits them best.

Although not homeschooled myself, I knew two children quite well who were. I worked with their father and we frequently socialized together, especially with our families.

My initial impression was that both children were extremely bright, ambitious and perhaps a tad over achieving in terms of schoolwork and related activities. Socially, I think it was obvious that they lacked the ability to blend in with other kids their age (non-home schooled children).

They had a close knit group of home schooled students in their "Circle" of friends which I think contributed to the social isolation to some extent. I also sensed a certain elitism from them as they became teenagers, especially with their reluctance to socialize with anyone outside of that circle.

While I do think the parents did a wonderful job of homeschooling them and preparing them for university, I have to say that I also think they did a very poor job of preparing them for life in general. Eventually they will need to interact with a wide variety of people and groups that they were not readied for. They were not allowed very much independence as compared to other children their age and as such I think this holds them back.

At the age of 18, the oldest child, a girl, was in my own estimate, emotionally a 13 year-old. The boy, whom I last saw at the age of sixteen, seemed to be permanently stuck at the emotional level of a 12 year-old, despite his own knowledge and abilites, which were clearly far beyond his age.

In my opinion, these kids were subject too much to the values and ideas of the parents, with no other benchmark to form their own values. I also sensed from others in this "Circle", that all of the parents were very intent on being over-protective and isolating their children from everyone else.

Long-term, I think both kids will eventually mature and adapt, but I think that home schooling them may have created a dam-like effect. By that I mean with so much isolation, I think when these kids do realize their independence as young adults, they're going to literally explode with experimenting and socializing in a way that will create problems at home, if not for them as well.

I do have experiences with home schooled children. My second cousins are all homeschooled and they are strange kids.. I think not being around other kids that much has really crushed there ability to act normally towards other human beings. I think if they had people judge them more harshly like average peers would, they wouldn't be quite as strange.

BIG Mike wrote:

Although not homeschooled myself, I knew two children quite well who were. I worked with their father and we frequently socialized together, especially with our families.

My initial impression was that both children were extremely bright, ambitious and perhaps a tad over achieving in terms of schoolwork and related activities. Socially, I think it was obvious that they lacked the ability to blend in with other kids their age (non-home schooled children).

They had a close knit group of home schooled students in their "Circle" of friends which I think contributed to the social isolation to some extent. I also sensed a certain elitism from them as they became teenagers, especially with their reluctance to socialize with anyone outside of that circle.

While I do think the parents did a wonderful job of homeschooling them and preparing them for university, I have to say that I also think they did a very poor job of preparing them for life in general. Eventually they will need to interact with a wide variety of people and groups that they were not readied for. They were not allowed very much independence as compared to other children their age and as such I think this holds them back.

At the age of 18, the oldest child, a girl, was in my own estimate, emotionally a 13 year-old. The boy, whom I last saw at the age of sixteen, seemed to be permanently stuck at the emotional level of a 12 year-old, despite his own knowledge and abilites, which were clearly far beyond his age.

In my opinion, these kids were subject too much to the values and ideas of the parents, with no other benchmark to form their own values. I also sensed from others in this "Circle", that all of the parents were very intent on being over-protective and isolating their children from everyone else.

Long-term, I think both kids will eventually mature and adapt, but I think that home schooling them may have created a dam-like effect. By that I mean with so much isolation, I think when these kids do realize their independence as young adults, they're going to literally explode with experimenting and socializing in a way that will create problems at home, if not for them as well.

Sounds quite similar to the way my parents raised me and my brothers and sisters.

Homeschooling?  Gee whiz we don't need computers and intarnetz and teeveez and drugs and cars lets just live like Little House on the prariez wear flowery skirtz goto churchiz when on sundayz and get beat when we come home!  Lets let our parents control every aspect of our livez and join cultz!!

Gimme a break, homeschooling is for the backward, in my experience the only people who make it alive out of homeschooling are the children who aren't selected for the majority of the assbeatings by the father, or the majority of the psychological domination by the father or mother or both.

Psychological domination in homeschooling happens all the time, in my opinion it is an inevitable result of their being no boundaries between parent and children where the child can have healthy exposure to other kids and other people.

Those nice outgoing people you see coming from homeschool families are the ones who were not getting their ass beat or psychologically whored out and dominated by their mother or father or both.  Their the ones that got treated nicely instead.  Their also the ones that typically bought the isolation rhetoric of "social conformity in the public schools is bad" while ironically gulping down total or near total social conformity in the environments they were raised in.  It is easy to buy that arguement when your not the one getting the backhand everytime you don't.

The ones who do get the worst of the domestic violence are usually labeled black sheep and ostracized due to the "perceived non compliance" that made them the target of their mother and father's paranoia and subsequent attempts at domination in the first place (usualy from a very early age).  These "black sheep" go on to problem filled adult existances and are generally viewed by the family as a whole as expendable people, literally, all the way down to the issue of the person dieing due to inability to survive.  The other's go on to live what on the outside appears to be healthy productive lives but their all rotten tomatoes on the inside suffering from trauma.

How do I know this, you really don't wanna know...

Darwin was sooo right, and in my experience the lower aspects of survival and it's miseries are magnified x10 in the homeschool environment which has the sweet sacharrin of total fealty and obedience, kinda like the sweet sacharin honeybees make in a Hive....

There is something innately dark and malicious about the homeschool envrionment I grew up in, it truly was evil.  It is a good place for the parents to project their inadequacies onto their children and like cowards get away with hurting the defenseless over and over and over again till they are rendered totally and utterly helpless....

wychic wrote:

I was indeed homeschooled, and looks like I need to create a hub about it .

I've heard so many people worried about their homeschooled kids having a social life, but it all depends on how you do it, for me my social interaction went WAY down when I entered public school in high school. My sister and I each had 12 4-H projects, played sports through the local recreation center, had classes with other homeschoolers in the region, were in a couple of projects at church, and I played violin through the local youth orchestra (we also had private piano lessons, but that doesn't say much for social stuff).

Yep, I'm off to write about my homeschooled experiences...now I dearly hope I can convince the significant other to let me homeschool our kids, it's very obvious to him that I received a much better education than he did and I like having more control over finding new ways for my kid to learn and actually being able to track his progress, those standardized tests just don't tell you much of anything.

Those "standardized tests that don't tell you much of anything" told me and my parents at the age of 12 that I had a college level reading comprehension.

I also tested for gifted and came a couple points shy as well as passing an IQ test with an IQ in the range of 130-140 and the test was not adjusted for a particular condition that young children sometimes have which causes them to be hyper (which I was thought to have at the time).

I was speaking in sentences by the age of 1 1/2 years old and was reading at the age of three and was bored outta my mind when I got to kindergarten, so much so that the teacher had to frequently discipline me when I got bored in class because I would act up and cause trouble. 

You have a right to your opinion, however I strongly disagree with your statement and what I contend to be the inherently noninformed nature of it.

Zarm Nefilin wrote:

Gimme a break, homeschooling is for the backward, in my experience the only people who make it alive out of homeschooling are the children who aren't selected for the majority of the assbeatings by the father, or the majority of the psychological domination by the father or mother or both.

Erm, just because you had an unhappy homeschool experience is no reason to project your misery and daddy issues on the rest of us. I loved homeschooling, and was very definitely neither beaten nor "psychologically dominated" by my parents. Nor were either of my siblings, and based on my experience (which was, incidentally, in a state and at a time when religious reasons were the only accepted excuse for homeschooling) we were hardly an exception to the rule. Yes, I saw children being, in my opinion, "psychologically dominated" and brainwashed into a fundamentalist Christian lifestyle and ideology, but I saw at least as many happy, well-adjusted kids, who went on to successful lives in college and beyond.

Regarding standardized testing, some people are good test takers and some are not. My brother and I both got perfect 800s on the SAT Verbal, my sister got 730. It's pretty obvious to anyone who knows us that she's not any dumber than he or I, so what gives? Yes, standardized tests can be useful measures of progress or native intelligence. They can also suggest there is a problem when there isn't, or cover up problems that ought to be dealt with. If a teacher teaches to the test, she can get her students to perform well on it even with a poor understanding of the material.

If homeschooling teaches you anything, it teaches you that the trappings of conventional education, including tests, are unnecessary and frequently inaccurate measures of what a student is actually learning.

Wow. Some pretty vicious opinions against homeschooling.

I was homeschooled for 4 years, from age 12 to 16. It was my choice. I hated public school, and I was finding a range of excuses to not attend. I finally convinced my parents to allow me to be homeschooled. This was at a time when there were no homeschooling programs like there are now. My program was directly through the county's superintendent of schools. I was allowed to choose my program to a certain degree, and I went from flunking out of every subject, to starting college at the age of 16. That's right, homeschooling allowed me to learn at me own pace, which was accelerated compared to public school. I graduated with a 3.95 GPA, and entered college at 16 (where I graduate with a 3.98, Summa Cum Laude, from one of the nation's top universities just 3 years later).

Homeschooling allowed me to explore my own interests. It allowed me to learn at my pace, rather than being kept behind to keep pace with other students. I was also allowed to explore subjects that aren't part of public school curriculum. I was more prepared for college than my friends from public school were.

I understand the arguments against homeschooling based on children building socialization skills, but during the 4 years I was homeschooled, I certainly did not lack for socialization or friends. I doubt, had I entered homeschool earlier, that I would have had any fewers opportunities for socialization. Much of the homeschool experience depends on the parents' involvement. Mine were heavily involved. We went to museums, galleries, zoos, theater, and a variety of other places. In fact, my parents, my brother and I travelled around the US for a year and a half. Homeschooling allowed us to do that, and I still graduated early. I was in 4-H, I showed rabbits and horses, I was in a drama club, I took art classes from the local recreation department.

There is no reason why a homeschool child can't be socialized. In fact, I think homeschooling gave me a sense of maturity and independence that was stifled by public school. I came out of my shell...and homeschooling allowed me to do that.

It's not for everyone, and shouldn't be for everyone. But the public school system is not for all children either. It's wrong to disparaged people of their choices. They feel they are doing what is right for their family, and if it's working, why ridicule them? More serial killers have come out the public school system than homeschools. Evil exists everywhere....don't put all homeschoolers in the same category!

Akita-jitsu wrote:

Wow. Some pretty vicious opinions against homeschooling.

I was homeschooled for 4 years, from age 12 to 16. It was my choice. I hated public school, and I was finding a range of excuses to not attend. I finally convinced my parents to allow me to be homeschooled. This was at a time when there were no homeschooling programs like there are now. My program was directly through the county's superintendent of schools. I was allowed to choose my program to a certain degree, and I went from flunking out of every subject, to starting college at the age of 16. That's right, homeschooling allowed me to learn at me own pace, which was accelerated compared to public school. I graduated with a 3.95 GPA, and entered college at 16 (where I graduate with a 3.98, Summa Cum Laude, from one of the nation's top universities just 3 years later).

Homeschooling allowed me to explore my own interests. It allowed me to learn at my pace, rather than being kept behind to keep pace with other students. I was also allowed to explore subjects that aren't part of public school curriculum. I was more prepared for college than my friends from public school were.

I understand the arguments against homeschooling based on children building socialization skills, but during the 4 years I was homeschooled, I certainly did not lack for socialization or friends. I doubt, had I entered homeschool earlier, that I would have had any fewers opportunities for socialization. Much of the homeschool experience depends on the parents' involvement. Mine were heavily involved. We went to museums, galleries, zoos, theater, and a variety of other places. In fact, my parents, my brother and I travelled around the US for a year and a half. Homeschooling allowed us to do that, and I still graduated early. I was in 4-H, I showed rabbits and horses, I was in a drama club, I took art classes from the local recreation department.

There is no reason why a homeschool child can't be socialized. In fact, I think homeschooling gave me a sense of maturity and independence that was stifled by public school. I came out of my shell...and homeschooling allowed me to do that.

It's not for everyone, and shouldn't be for everyone. But the public school system is not for all children either. It's wrong to disparaged people of their choices. They feel they are doing what is right for their family, and if it's working, why ridicule them? More serial killers have come out the public school system than homeschools. Evil exists everywhere....don't put all homeschoolers in the same category!

I certainly do not consider my own opinion on homeschooling to be vicious, but my experiences in the setting were.

Should people have a right to homeschool their children?

Imo it really depends on the parent, because after all the child has no say in it for the first few years of it's life anyway as it is forming it's own opinion about reality in a practically spoonfed manner by it's parents.  That is why DSS comes in handy because if parents are unfit to homeschool they will have their children removed.

Usually (this has been my observation), if someone is paranoid or against DSS that is for a reason, and it is not because DSS is bad or corrupt but because that person is doing something seriously screwed up to their children.

But that is my observation, observing how my childhood friend (whose mother was Munchausen Bi-Proxy and thought all her kids were sick even though they were not cuz that is what Munchausen Bi Proxy is) grew up in such a twisted household and later his oldest sister panicked and literally jumped out the window one night out of terror of their mother.

Eventually my childhood best friend's oldest sister contacted DSS, an investigation was performed and all the kids were taken away from her and she was diagnose as having Munchausen Bi Proxy.  Weird too cuz I always remember as a kid thinking how weird it was that my friend and all his brothers and sisters had these weird "illnesses" they talked about like all kinds of allergies to artificial flavoring and everyone of them ahd astham (turned out later only my friend had asthma).

She homeschooled her children practically religiously and her husband was a computer programmer.

There are some instances of homeschooling that I have seen where the parents are somewhat respectful of their children's boundaries, but those were few and far between.

When you live in with people like that (in a home setting) you just can't help it if your parents decide to go "south" as far as isolating you and your siblings and dominating you and or your siblings.

Because of the relative ease with which home schooling parents can sweep the domestic violence under the rug when the authorities come checking up on them, they can practically get away with murder as long as they bury the body and label it a miscarriage on the grave!

I sincerely think homeschooling is really only an experience that is as good as the community in place and the parents doing it, and from where I stand I can think of very few parents who would be qualified to do it, and certainly not the kind that are typically "stereotyped" as homeschooling in our culture.

I certainly do think that your situation came out good, you had parents who were very active and did not attempt to control you.

That is truly a good thing and I am glad it turned out well.

My only point is there are some whose experiences do not turn out so well if the parents are not as committed, open, and kind as yours evidently were.

I tend to estimate that as being the exception to the rule (your kind of experience), but perhaps I am indeed wrong.

kerryg wrote:

Zarm Nefilin wrote:

Gimme a break, homeschooling is for the backward, in my experience the only people who make it alive out of homeschooling are the children who aren't selected for the majority of the assbeatings by the father, or the majority of the psychological domination by the father or mother or both.

Erm, just because you had an unhappy homeschool experience is no reason to project your misery and daddy issues on the rest of us.

Your right, that is all it is, "misery and daddy issues".

Just like soldiers who come home from war and express disdain for the war, all they are doing is "projecting" their "war issues" onto other people.  Or when women get raped all they are doing is projecting their "Men issues" onto other people if they end up with a more feminist perspective.

Yup your right that is all it is

Wrong. 

You are dead wrong, and what you said hurt and was totally spiteful, not that people like you give a flip anyway.  Oh, and you don't give a flip, you really don't so don't act like you do. 

Congratulations, you have come to the conclusion that no one has a legitimate opinion other than those who grew up with nice experiences, you have discovered the wonderful naievete of practicing non compassion and insulting remarks.

P.S.

If you feel that way about the lack of standardized testing then please quote references, for the sake of all here who actually value informed opinions.

Also btw I was not raised in a fundamentalist environment, and as regards what I was raised in, that is for me to know and you to not know.

Hey, Zarm, nobody is criticising you here. It sounds like you had a rotten childhood, and nobody is saying you didn't.

Not all homeschooling parents are abusive like yours were, and that's all people are saying.

Yours clearly were, and that sucks.

It wasn't a personal attack on you, so please don't get personal in return, even if you feel angry about it. That will just provoke more angry words from the person you have just hurt.

Be a gentleman, even when provoked.

It would be gentlemanly to apologize to the lady, or at least edit your post to remove the offensive language.

Mark Bennett wrote:

Hey, Zarm, nobody is criticising you here. It sounds like you had a rotten childhood, and nobody is saying you didn't.

Not all homeschooling parents are abusive like yours were, and that's all people are saying.

Yours clearly were, and that sucks.

It wasn't a personal attack on you, so please don't get personal in return, even if you feel angry about it. That will just provoke more angry words from the person you have just hurt.

Be a gentleman, even when provoked.

It would be gentlemanly to apologize to the lady, or at least edit your post to remove the offensive language.

By your definition it would be, and I certainly understand that.

First off "people" are saying different things, I am one of those people who are saying different things so I do not appreciate being singled out, not by "the people" (of which I am one) but by you.

One of the above posters in the first sentence clearly used derogatory and highly insensitive language so your case is hard pressed.

I love the internet and cut and paste, it's like what it would be like to have a tape recorder in real life to catch people in the act.

I will not yield to you, leave it be.

If "nobody is criticising me" then leave it be.  Afterall, "no one is criticising me" right?

It would be wise.

Also as far as provoking "more angry words" rest assured I will not respond to anything that person posts from here on out, I do not start or finish things, but that doesn't mean I will swallow insults in the name of "being a gentleman".  I am not hers or your doormat.

Also only some people were saying it is a good thing, one person shared their experience (like one of the other posters), which was obviously a good one.

If it was a good experience then that is fine, but derogatory spiteful comments (like the one made in one of the above posts by the poster who made the comment), meant to provoke, will get people nowhere with me.

You want proof of that?  Proof will be in the absence of me replying to anything that person says from now on, until such comments are apologized for.

Imo that would be the "lady like" thing to do.  If she were an honorable person she would have never made that comment in the first place. 

I am not the one who in one sentence slighted years of god-knows-what that she went through, and reduced it all down into a one sentence spiteful derogatory comment clearly meant to spite.

We do not live in the middle ages and their is not a code of chivalry that must be followed.

There is more to honor than some dumb idea of chivalry, if you want to be a knight go wage war for bush.

Leave me alone.  Trust me at least when I say this much directly to you, you don't want to push this.

If you want to continue to step on the landmine, be prepared to accept the consequences.

Drop it.

Zarm Nefilin wrote:

If you want to continue to step on the landmine, be prepared to accept the consequences.

Drop it.

I'm quaking in my shoes, I'm sure.

But seriously, I do apologize for causing offense. I was offended by your implication that all homeschoolers are abused and "psychologically dominated" and I let the sarcasm come on a little too strong in my reply.

I am sorry you had a bad experience homeschooling, but please don't suggest that because your experience was bad, homeschooling in general is bad. I do agree, even strongly agree, that there are problem parents who abuse the privilege, or allow their children to abuse it, but they are by no means the majority. The quality of public education in this country is dismal, in general, and there are many, many parents who legitimately wish to offer their children the best possible education and whose only feasible option is homeschooling.

I think one way or another we are all homeschooled. You can't learn everything in school. All of the time, we only learn a portion of knowledge in school and we explore them on our own.

Zarm,

I think you over react. I totally believe you had a very bad experience in this area. Fortunately, most people don't. In fact, you are the first one from whom I hear about such serious issues with homeschooling, all other homeschooled people I know are pretty happy with their experience...

I definitely see a potential for serious abuse - but most if not all things in our Earthy life can be abused...

As for Kerry giving you a hard time - you was the first to do this I suggest you guys just agree to disagree, since you obviously had very different experience with homeschooling...