Why do people home school their children?

When my oldest child was pre k, we bought a nice home in a quiet subdivision. Had every intention of enrolling him in public school. Thought homeschoolers were the nut fringe...Until we enrolled him in the local soccer league, and got a good look at the school. (the soccer fields were located behind the school)

They bussed our kids across town to the middle of a housing project, and the school was in the middle of a mini "Hells Kitchen". It literally had a 9 foot fence with razor wire around it! It resembled not so much a school, but a penitentiary I actually had a parent in our neighborhood say, "It has improved a lot since they added the 9 foot fence with razor wire." As if that were a good thing!

All of the government houses closest to the school were burned out and boarded up. Why not just put up a neon sign, all drug dealers welcome?

I clearly remember the moment standing in the soccer field, looking at that unbelievable excuse for a school, and asking my husband...

"So, what's up with that homeschool thing?".

We have since moved, my daughter went to public kindergarten...but we couldn't wait to get her out. Multiple reasons...parental behavior at class events, the school literally losing my kid for 2 hours on the first day of school...(The school staff found my concern for my daughters whereabouts AMUSING...after they already admitted they had no idea where she was, when she didn't get off the bus...silly me)

Took her out, never looked back.

Homeschooling is truly a lifestyle...and it just fits our family well. I have always had a deep love of classic literature, and am a whiz at English and Science...(and did darned well in the romance languages...Latin was a cinch) Hubs (an electrical engineer) and my oldest are the math men...but I aced Algebra and Geometry in HS (it is Trig that makes me pull my hair out...so that is all hubs.). And we ALL love History. So, it just, works for us...

Edit: Looking at my answer a day later, I really should have mentioned that we by far prefer a Christian Curriculum as well...wow, I was tired when I wrote this...

We were willing to make a go of the local public schools, though...if they hadn't been so awful...the office staff in the one that at least LOOKED better were literally cracking jokes (in my presence) that I was so concerned that no one knew where my 5 year old was. My missing child was a great source of amusement.(... In the background, yelled at me by the school nurse, to the great amusement of all the office staff..."Yeah, Lady, trust me, we WANT to give them back at the end of the day, we sure don't want to keep them here, we have had enough of 'em"...while the secretary and I were tracing the route to see where she might have been left by accident) Not the way to retain your students...if the parents have half a brain, that is...

My child is homeschooled. (No hyphen necessary) She is a delightful person with many friends. As to her sense of social responsibility; she volunteered to give up her room, downsize her bed and move into the office so that we could provide a home for three small foster children. She helps her friends with their homework, volunteers in the community and makes sure we never forget to recycle. She has never believed in any god, even when I did. She is a good person because she possesses both reason and compassion. She has been raised to value both of those attributes. Your question is not funny. Stereotyping children is reprehensible. I wonder how you managed never to develop morality? I guess that was lacking in your upbringing. EDIT: She's also the best big sister I have ever laid eyes on. She has danced with the Moscow Ballet. She has traveled. She was cast in an award winning film. Homeschooling can be very exciting.

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what you have available in school is also available to homeschooling parents.

Personally, I have choose to home-school my son because in some areas he exceeds what is being taught and in others he is not give enough attention to catch up. I find this extremely unfair, and the teachers did not assist in this matter at all.

After starting his lesson plans, which I am new at, I have found that I can teach him more than they are in school because I have more time for him. Which the teachers don't.

Homeschooling is choice of the individual. For some, they use homeschooling options that will cost a bit, but they get the same results. More time for the child to learn, and more time to ANSWER the questions the child has.

I see no point for a child to stay after school because he has a question to assist in him/her catching the idea of the subject.

Hope that helps ... good luck with deciding. (I use to think home-school just wasn't the way. I learned it just might be.)

I was homeschooled all the way through. It wasn't really any one reason that my parents did it. For kindergarten I turned 5 in the summer, and they weren't sure if I was old enough yet, so they decided to do a "practice" kindergarten at home with the intention that I'd go to kindergarten in the fall. That went well and they had met a few homeschoolers, and so decided to homeschool until 2nd grade, but for sure not after that. In 2nd grade they tried to decide what school to send me too. The public school near us wouldn't let them look at the curriculum or give them any information about what they would teach. This kind of made them uncomfortable with that school. There is a Catholic school near by, but that had a long waiting list, and we were at the bottom of it. They decided to homeschool me through 6th grade, and then I'd go to a Christian school near us in 7th grade. By then, we were involved in a number of homeschool groups and I had lots of good friends in them. I really didn't like the idea of not seeing them very often and having to make all new friends. Plus, homeschooling had become the norm for them. There really wasn't any reason to go to a school. If done right, there aren't any social difficulties, and homeschooling is much better academically and in teaching a kid to be more independent. People who don't know much about it typically assume we were fairly isolated, but that's definitely not true. There are well over a million homeschooled kids in the US now. Now I'm in my last year of college majoring in mechanical engineering. I get mostly As and enjoy school. There really weren't any difficulties that way. I'd want to homeschool my kids. I guess for me it is the norm. I'd have to have a reason not to rather than a reason too. I don't see much reason not to, but lots of reasons to.

So many reasons....

*Terrible schools--Ours are some of the worst in the country.

*Safety--Have you read the news stories about school shootings, kids bullied to the point of committing suicide, etc.?

*Education--Having taught in local schools, I know how far educational standards have fallen in the past decade or two. I can do much better for my children at home.

*Freedom--When I'm in charge of their education, we run our own family's schedule. We don't have to cancel plans at the last minute because of a big school project that we didn't know about; we can vacation when we want; we can take days off for sickness or to go to some function, without it interrupting the children's education.

*Moral values--Schools these days teach that "anything goes"; I want my children to grow up believing that there is a difference between right and a wrong.

*Socializing--In school, kids seem to learn by the law of the jungle, the "Lord of the Flies" mentality, where the strong kids bully the ones who are different and kids learn to either bully or be bullied. I want my children to learn to get along well with other people, to have someone around who can guide them as to proper behavior in the different circumstances they encounter.

*Extracurriculars--Our schools seem to be cutting out all the extracurriculars and have students studying only what will be on their tests. Low-level tests. Not studying, for example, history or social studies in the first 6 years of school because it isn't on the state's test. And art or P.E. (or gym or whatever you want to call it) are skipped entirely or designed to go with the state's test. At home we can study all the academic subjects and also art and music and athletics and anything else we want.

*Experience--I was homeschooled for a couple of my elementary years. I experienced the great education and freedom and extra spare time, freedom from bullies, etc. and knew that I wanted that for my children.

*History--From all I've read, those who could afford to educate their children at home, whether teaching the children themselves or hiring a tutor or governess, did so. Brick-and-mortar schools were provided for those who didn't have the resources to have an option. Since we are able to manage it, we want the best for our children.

*More than anything, we do it because my spouse and I are both educators. I did teach in local schools. My spouse still does. We know the system too well to want to have to subject our children to it.

I can't speak for anyone else, but the main reason we homeschool is our daughter's health. She was diagnosed with ALL ( Acute Lymphoblastic Lukemia) at 4 yrs old and we were already dealing with Venom Anaphalaxia ( allergy to venomous insects) & Asthma along with 2 prior episodes of Cardiac Arrest when she was not yet 2.

Being in a closed classroom with 20-25 children who for the most part are battleing colds, coughs & what not turned into a nightmare for us as she was constantly sick and would end up missing more days then she attended. Her learning was pretty much stalled.

I quit my job as a Pre-K Teacher to stay home with her and teach her at a pace that worked for her. Now 6 yrs later, she tests out at Junior/Senior High School level Science & History, is doing double gradeing ( 5th/6th grade). Wants to be a Paleontologist when she gets older, can run circles around me when it comes to Nancy Drew computer games ( don't ask what possessed me to introduce her to that teenage sleuth in the first place cause darn if I know) and has a wicked right hook compliments of her 17yr old brother.

We don't use 'pre-packaged' curriculum, I take her spelling words from the books she reads and get a great majority of her stuff off the internet ( free for the most part other than printer ink & paper cost). We use Ray's Arithmetic which is a little over 150 yrs old and used in One Room Schools, McGuffey's Readers & Speller, Spencer penmanship & Harvey's Grammar & Composition ( again all over 150 yrs old). Hands-on Science & History, supplemental reading ( basically whatever she interested in reading), French/German/Italian language lessons, Singing & Flute lessons and field trips galore.

Probably the obvious answer for us would be to say my siblings and I are all home educated because there are no schools where we live. The government shut down the only school up here back in the 1980s and now the closest school is a two-day drive away.

Other reasons for my parents include the desire to raise us themselves rather than send us away to boarding school for nine months of the year; the need to see that we're raised with the knowledge and skills necessary to survive in our enviroment, community and culture; the desire to give us a relaxed, stress-free, autonomous childhood (the number one reason for home education in our country btw); the freedom to control our own schedule and dictate our own education; and the overwhelming belief that we should be educated and not merely schooled.

For me, being educated at home means the opportunity to grow up in my own community and within my own culture; to be in a position to make a genuine and meaningful contribution not only to my family's day-to-day life but also to both my parents' businesses; and, for me, probably the most pressing reason is that being educated outside of the school system means I'm free to push myself much harder, far further and be heaps tougher on myself than any school or outside teacher could ever be.

Maybe they live too far in the country to make the drive there and back twice a day worthwhile.

Maybe their school districts can't offer a good education (you'd be surprised).

Maybe they are conservative in their religion.

Maybe they want to introduce their children to a different side of education.

Maybe they are in the military and don't want to expose their children to school hopping for the rest of the education.

I don't home school, but I do know that you shouldn't clump them all together. For every psycho religious nut who is trying to hide their child from the real world, you have parents who are truly taking a hands-on approach to learning. For every crazy, socially-awkward home schooled student, you have even more home-schoolers who are mannered and well adjusted.

Also remember that there are societies of home schoolers. They meet up together for field trips, communicate with each other, etc.

I was homeschooled through middle school and high school because my local school district either could not or would not do anything to meet my educational and social needs. I was terribly bored in school, my classmates picked on me constantly and the teachers did nothing about it, and in the end there were even teachers who picked on me themselves. The schools in my district were over-crowded and even in the best of circumstances the quality of education they provided wasn't very high. There were no private schools in my area (except the Catholic school, which I did attend for a short time but even there the education wasn't that outstanding) and the only other option was boarding school, which my parents weren't willing to consider.

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Have a nice day