Homeschooling

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Wondering if anyone here has been homeschooled (or wishes they had been!)

I have been homeschooled in the 11th and 12th grades. More precisely, I worked through a distance learning center - being homeschooled by your parents or by a teacher is very rare in France, and my parents did not have time.
Now that I have passed my "Bac" (high school exit exam), I will have to go to college, which means going back to classes with other students. It starts on September 1st. I remember my year and a half of homeschooling as a good experience, much less stressful than classic school, but also more interesting. I also had more free time, and could work on my personal interests more.


Loy

I asked this question because I'm seriously considering homeschooling my 10 year old son-He's such a gentle old soul and at school he is made to feel as if he is "bad" or that there's something wrong with him and I see his self-confidence weakening as the years go by-of course I want him to socialize in the "real" world but I don't think being bullied put down and punished at school is preparing him for anything!

Sometimes I wish I was homeschooled, but my parents have to work! And when I gave my elementary school a B (in the exit survey), I was practically pressured to by my reading/social studies teacher who was all, "one year, everybody was kidding around and giving this school bad grades and the board of education took it seriously...this other school, *SHINING*, another school, *SHINING*, blah blah blah blah blah." (I know those weren't her exact words, but they're awfully close.) If I could turn back time, I'd change my grade to what it was going to be without the...you know (a C[-] instead of the B[+] I gave it).

BOTTOM LINE: I want to get school over with ASAP!! !

Mich

I think that a lot of Aspies have been homeschooled. I belong to the Dalllas Asperger's Network, and that is the impression I have gotten from there. I myself was never been homeschooled, and am not sure if it is such a good idea. Mainly because it is much more difficult for homeschoolers to learn social skills, and this goes for neurotypicals as well. I could understand homeschool for some of the earlier grades, but I would say that high school is really important and should not be missed.

There are some times I wish I had been homeschooled. With the bullying and harassment I had to put up with, I used to dread going to school every day. Today, I think about who would have been doing the homeschooling(my mother), and realize in some ways I might have been better off. My mother spent alot of time frustrated with me because I was different and wanted me to be like everyone else or at least appear to be like everyone else. I don't think her homeschooling would have been good for me at all.

As for social development, I wonder if what you describe is good social development. Being taunted for no good reason by bullies isn't good for anyone's social development in my opinion, and schools saying it's the student's fault doesn't exactly help either.

With homeschooling being so popular, alot of homeschooling organizations have sprung up around the U.S. to provide support for parents who are homeschooling. Among the things these groups do is organize activities for homeschooled kids, so they can be around other kids.

I think I would have benefitted from homeschooling, as long as someone other than my mother had been the teacher<grin>.

An incredible luck had it that I was homeschooled for most of the "worst years" (13-15 years old). This had nothing to do with my social inadjustment. My father got a job in Africa and we moved there. We were actually traveling back and forth, and I spent there almost whole 7th grade, and half of 8th and 9th grades.

I was actually homeschooling myself. It was supervised by a school located at the embassy of my home country. I was required to send every month a "homework", which involved quite a lot of time to prepare. At the end of each semester we were traveling to the capital for exams - they were very stressful (9 subjects in a day). In addition I was going every day to a local school for English and French lessons (but only those, as I did not speak local language).

I remember these years as best in my childhood. It was a break in the nightmare of bullying. (I still had a lot of it during half of 8th grade that I spent in my home country.) I was not bullied at the local school, because I was spending there only short time each day, and for a foreigner keeping some distance was natural. Although first semester of my homeschooling turned to be an "executive catastrophe", later I disciplined myself and was usually able to meet monthly deadlines. I passed exams with good grades.

On the other hand, my sister, who was then in grades 2-4, does not have such fond memories of homeschooling. She says that she disliked being taught by mother. "Mother as mother is fine, but if mother is also a teacher - that's just too much".

My mom homeschooled me from 4th grade until my sophomore year in highschool. She had pulled me out of school because my school was not will ing adapt to help me. They tried giving me a little cubicle type thing on one side of the room, but I kept thinking the everyone was staring at me. I got in trouble in kindergarten for standing around too long with my coat. I don't think they liked having to adapt to someone they just thought was "quiet" and "shy". Of course, my school was horrible. I only had one teacher that I liked and that was 2nd grade.

Now that I'm in highschool (mom wanted me to be "prepared for the real world") I find that I can just talk to my teachers more openly and tell them when I need help and not feel like an idiot.

I wish I had been for elementary school because I had a very difficult time socially and was always way ahead with all the academic work being done. But I was able to teach myself a lot of academic skills and figure out how to read a textbook and learn from it, which has helped me a lot in the past few years.

ohhhhhhhhh how I wish I'd been homeschooled. My family life wasn't the best but if I could have been spared about 4 years of that hell I'd be a very different person today...

I was not homeschooled and am really grateful that I wasn't.

Why are you grateful?

I have homeschooled for half of 8th gradeand I am going to finish out the reast of this year before I go back to regualr school.


-SpaceCase

I am grateful for many reasons. I don't even know where to begin.

School was an environment that forced me to learn social skills. Every homeschooled student I know personally has absolutely no social awareness at all (even the NT ones). They lack the understanding of knowing when they should or should not speak, and they are not aware of how to behave around other people. Even when homeschooled students do extra-curricular activities for socialisation purposes, it is within a controlled environment. They often end up only knowing people exactly like them. Homeschooling often puts the students in a 'bubble' where they don't get any real life experience.

At school, I had to learn how to deal and work with students I didn't like. I had to learn how to deal with teachers I didn't like. It taught me to stand up for myself. Going to school makes students more savvy and gives them street smarts. All the homeschooled students I know are completely naive. They are so naive that they can easily be taken advantage of because they are not aware. Going to school also gave me examples to follow in social situations. I was able to observe how my peers interacted, and figure things out for myself. All of this experience gave me strength to advocate for myself later on. Going to school teaches students practical lessons about tolerance and awareness.

My social skills at this point in my life (I'm 18 now) are pretty much equal to my NT peers. I honestly believe that if I had been homeschooled, I would be completely reclusive and unable to cope in the real world. That is why I am grateful.

Interesting that you say that.

I see my social skills and ability to cope with the "real world" as having developed despite my experience with school as opposed to because of it. IMO, the social world of school is so totally different from the real world(One of the reasons why there are so many books on the subject) that a far more effective way to learn social skills is to have lots of interaction in a more unstructured environment(ie, co-ops, homeschool extracurricular lessons set up by co-op, is the type of thing I an thinking of) I know a few homeschool students like you describe, but they are that way because their parents kept them from real world experience, not because they were homeschooled. I know many homeschooled kids with amazing social skills, almost all of them that I know are average or above. What some people my percieve as "social skills" like following the crowd, dressing fashionably, etc. most homeschool students do not do this because they are allowed to be themselves instead of being forced into a mold that no one actually fits.

I understand what it is you are saying but being an involved parent in my son's homeschooling, I tend to disagree with you. The key is to vary the different activities and people. I think that you must also look at the spectrum and where the child falls on it. I do agree that they can be naive and lack street smarts but most school-aged NT's are also. My son has always stuck up for himself and refused to be pushed around.

The social aspect of school had been removed; recess is no more and lunch has become a quiet time. Even the end of the day when they prepare to go home they must be quiet. I also worked at my son's school before I decided to homeschool him. I felt if we could complete academics in 4 1/2 hours and use the rest of the time for life skills, social skills and pleasurable things why not. I think because my son is a musician/ artist, he is around all types of people all the time and the result has been awsome.