So I have been pondering this question for some time, and since there are so many homeschoolers here I am sure I'll get plenty of replies.

If God ever graced you with children, would you homeschool them? Or would you send them to school?

Some of my siblings are adamant that they would never homeschool, or they might homeschool until the children got to a certain age and then send them to school. What do you think? Are there a lot of downsides to homeschooling? 'Tis just a subject I am interested in hearing your thoughts on.

Great question, Elanor! I think it's quite ironic that you would post this after a comment I heard my (very clever) six year old brother say the other day:

"Why do people send their own children to school?"

I think it is a very good question, and my answer is that I would definitely homeschool my children. I feel that if God gives me children, it is my responsibility to "train them up in the way they should go", not give them to someone else to do it for me.

That is my view on it, anyway.

I would homeschool my children, if it was God's will for me to do so.

If I had children, I would most definitely homeschool them. If one has children, why send their own children to school to be taught by someone else? That's my view, anyway.

Right now I am being home schooled in a family from ages 18-3 and there are seven of us, so necessarily we have to keep ourselves in order more than if we were at school and we don't have as much guidance as we should. On the other hand homeschooling allows for individuation, It allows for the fact that children should learn at their own pace, I didn't read until I was seven or eight but now I'm the biggest reader in the house.

That has been my experience of homeschooling, I would say that I personally would like to home school my children until they were at least ten, I don't think that I could give up my babies and let someone teach the them when they are little, I wouldn't want to send them away from home to let them get attached to their teachers, I want them to be attached to me! When the kids were older I might consider sending them to school, would depend on a lot of things. What the child is like, how many children I have and am I able to keep up with all of them, and what kinds of schools there are around.

I would homeschool them. On how the society of today is currently looking, and the downward fall it... I don't know how good of a choice public school would be.
Most middle schools I have seen are really messed up! They are normally unsupervised and very wild. The kids' parents rarely take much part in their life, they leave learning to the teachers, and don't see their kids hardly at all. Hence families that are farther apart from each other.
 Homeschooling would be a good choice here. I see homeschoolers be academically farther in life than others in public school systems. Past middle school, once you have strong foundations of faith I think that children have enough maturity to start dealing with the world. So public school high schools are a probability in my children's life. Depending on how the world is...

My choice would depend heavily on who I married, where I would be, and other factors - but I think homeschooling is definitely a wonderful choice. The public school in my area is a good school, with good teachers, but still...
My sister and I were discussing yesterday how most kids have mainly negative influence. I have had mainly positive influence all my life, and that's because I have been homeschooled by wonderful Christian parents.

I would likely (if circumstances allowed) home-school my children until high school at least. That's how I was raised and I think it molds core values better than if they have the whole world there right off the bat.

I will absolutely homeschool my kids all the way up through high school! It may not be easy, but it is what I believe is the right thing for me to do, as well as being how I am being schooled.

I would (rather, my wife would, specifically) absolutely homeschool them.
God bless,
Crushmaster.

I feel it would be wrong to deny my children a gift that was given to me. I plan to homeschool my children through highschool! I think it is a wonderful and God honoring option of education that I would love to bless my children with.

I am going to radically homeschool my children with my wife until they leave the family. That is how God made it to work, and I intend to follow that pattern.

What he said!

I wouldn't leave the whole thing to my wife; I would want to share in the task of raising children.

*Cheers* Yes!

I would definitely want to homeschool my children with whomever I am going to marry and teach them what they need to learn. Simply that.

*nods* Yes, we were taught at home, and personally I really like it. But the drift I'm getting from some of my friends and family is that if you're doing it to protect your children then you're doing it for the wrong reasons. And I guess that really made me think. I would like to homeschool, I just hope if I'm ever blessed with an husband, he will think the same way. And I think it is something that should be done as a couple; my Mother always had my Dad to fall back on if she needed his help. I think it's with all this talk recently that made me think, is it right to want to homeschool your children to protect them, when in the end they have to face the world anyway.

Protecting your children is one of the best reasons, in my view of things. I am actually writing a blog post on sheltering soon, haha.

I agree with Emeth, protecting your children is very important and it is a very good reason to homeschool. I wouldn't think you'd hurt them more by protecting them from the world until they are older, simply because, though you may be protecting them, you can still teach and prepare them for the challenges ahead. So somebody who was... "sheltered" would actually be more prepared for the world then someone who was thrown into the world at a young age with no "training" (so to speak) for how to react.

Therefore, homeschooling would open up an entire other advantage that it has, which involves not just teaching yours children school, but also moral values and life lessons, because somebody who spends all day with their children is going to teach them more lessons that can apply towards life than somebody who spends from three in the afternoon on the weekdays (not even that... If they work) and two days on the weekends (probably, helping with some homework in that time), leaving it to Sunday school to teach their children about Jesus. Not to say that public or private school parents wouldn't be able to teach their kids life lessons, just that they'd have less time to do so.

And all that translates to; by protecting your children you are giving them time to grow stronger before they are attacked. Would the military throw its newest recruit in the front line before putting him through a lot of training? No... So if we put that towards children, we should put them through a lot of training too.

And so as not to entirely derail... (if that was a derailment...mm...don't think so) I plan on homeschooling through high school. I don't plan on doing the same exact thing my mum did, though, I kind of want to be a bit more...radical, I suppose.

Anyways, mini-rant over, carry on.

Bethany Faith

I will look forward to reading that, Jay!

Bethy, that was an amazing post and you didn't 'rant or derail' it made complete sense.

I don't know, I'm undecided. On one hand, I see the results of families who home-school and leave their kids so sheltered that they're not ready to face the real world or anything in it. In my mind, I want to avoid my hypothetical children being so sheltered that they come out of 12th grade not ready for anything, not having left home for the past seven years.

On the other hand, what I see in today's generation shocks and saddens me, particularly in public schools. I've only had one year of official public school teaching, and it was the worst year I've ever had. Not only looking at the social side (which was bad enough) but the educational quality as well--public schooling can't measure up to other forms.

All that to say...I'm still not sure. I have thought about a mix between homeschooling and unschooling; or more appropriately radical homeschooling. I am highly disillusioned with the current educational systems of test and whatnot and plan to write a system when I grow up which hopefully can correct some of the short-falls of the current system

Although, I still am not planning on getting married, or having kids, at this point, so all of this is very much hypothetical

eru

Yes, people can homeschool wrong. The kinds you listed here generally get it more right.

Hey, the homeschool convention covered that issue! Voddi Baucham spoke about reasons (right and wrong) for homeschooling your kids, and I found it quite enlightening (especially because he speaks very energetically). One of the things he said was that if you homeschool your kids for any reason (even because it's Biblical), if you don't do it in order to glorify God, you're doing it for the wrong reason. I thought that was very interesting.

Another thing. He likened giving your kid to a teacher to giving your car keys to a stranger. After all, if you wouldn't trust a stranger with your keys, why trust them with your kid?

I would never allow someone with (most likely) radically different values and morals to teach my children without my supervision. Or with it.

Anyhow, that's my position.

Calista

You know Voddie Baucham??

I have been homeschooled my entire life, never once set foot in the door of a public school as a student. And I don't regret it. I have had so much fun doing this over the years, it is not even a question if I would homeschool. It is an absolute, 120%, without a doubt, YES.
There have been so many moments where I am glad to be doing what I am doing instead of being in school. Once we were doing math on the front porch, with my sister and brother on a glorious spring day, and my mom said "Isn't this better then being in school?" And it was. And also, once we were done with our school, which maybe took about an hour to half an hour in the morning, we could go read a book, and play outside or whatever. What mom has discovered in her years of homeschooling is that school is generally a waste of time. I have gotten to have so many amazing experiences because I don't go to school. I've put baby birds back in a nest when they fell, I've gone canoeing in the silvery spring morning, I've zip lined across a tree-filled valley, loving every minute of it.
And if you are worried about homeschooled kids not getting socialized, pfffft. We have a group of homeschoolers in our area and we do loads of fun activities. Let's see..... during the winter I am busy with Bible quizzing, figure skating, homeschool skating, and homeschool drama club, and in the summer we still do activities such as going a park every Monday to play wide games. And that's not even counting the game nights we kids organize, or campfires to roast marshmallows and make s'mores. Which are delicious, by the way. All this put together is great.
In our homeschool group, ages or grades don't matter. Some of my closest friends are a year or two younger or older. We all work together as a team for drama, young and old actors. In our last homeschool drama the oldest was 18, I think, and the youngest was 7. But we worked as a team, realizing that all, even the smallest part with only a few lines, are important. Without those small parts, the play wouldn't come together. Like the Bible verses about the body has to be whole. If the head is without eyes, it wouldn't be whole. Which is why we work together, to make the drama come together as a whole.
We are all friends no matter what the age is. And that is probably one of the best things about homeschooling.
My Mom likes to talk to new homeschooler parents and encourage them to homeschool their kids. She said something along the lines of this to a new parent once:
"People think homeschooling is the strange way to do it, not sending your kids away to be schooled. But really, in nature, what mother bird sends her birds away to teach them to fly? What mother fox lets another teach her cubs how to hunt? And what mama bear lets another teach her babies how to fish? She doesn't even let anyone near her babies! In nature, the parents are the teachers. Not some stranger at a school."
I have had the greatest experience in this adventure as a homeschool student, and I am only 14! I can't wait to see what God has in store for the rest of my homeschool years, and beyond!
I highly suggest that you homeschool your kids. You won't regret it!

And thus ends my long and probably a little loud and opinionated rant.

Great post AzlynMae! Hurrah for homeschoolers!


I don't know him personally, but I've heard him speak. It was amazing too.

I'm with Eru there.

I might not have a choice; archaeologists of any sort don't get paid very well or stay in one spot for a long time.

Okay, I have several reasons why I would never send my child to public school, at any age. A lot of it has to do with my personal experience.

Firstly, I agree with the thought process that God gave my children to me, not to anyone else. I have more of a vested interest in seeing my children succeed, then anyone else.

I know, from personal experience, that a brilliant child is seen as a problem that needs medicating. If your child doesn’t fit the mold, they are given a label and have pills forced down their throat (I can testify to that one). This can damage many kids. It didn’t me, because of my personality, but I know kids who ended up in the same boat and had lots of psychological damage from the labeling system. There was nothing wrong with me. I was just a problem student for my teachers. So they write up a slip, tell my parents I need to go to the Doctor, and I come back with a label that says I need sedation. That only lasted 4 months before my parents wanted their child back, and not the vegetated product they were given.

Secondly, I was a fairly decent kid, but I was stifled. I was outspoken about the things I believed and that brought heavy pressure. Heavy pressure than many kids would succumb too. The public school system sets children up for failure. Now, some children can overcome that. My best friend went through the public school system and is amazing, but not all kids are grounded enough for that.

The “light in the darkness” debate doesn’t hold any water with me, either. We don’t send new believers out to witness to the Jehovah’s witnesses. They aren’t ready. They don’t have the foundation. They aren’t strong enough. Kids are the same way. I am far more prepared now, at 20, to debate an evolutionary teacher, then I was at 13. I could have gave my teachers a run for their money, but I wasn’t as affective as I could be now. But this debate requires a lot of discussion, so I’ll move on.

Another thing to think about is the pressure of other people. And I’m not just talking about kids. When your child stands out, they endure persecution. I was accused of stealing when I was in school. It was a total set-up, but everyone believed that I had done it. It wasn’t proved that I hadn’t done it, for 2 years. My teachers didn’t know enough about me, hadn’t invested enough time in me, to know that I wouldn’t do that.


All of this is not meant as a bash on public school or the kids that are in public school. 70% of the kids I know are in public school. That’s part of what keeps me motivated not to subject my children to that lifestyle. I know the things about public school that they don’t want you to know. The things kids hide from their parents. And I would do anything to protect my unprepared children from that.

This is going to be fun. I love stating my opinion, especially when it's not the same as everyone else's.
Therefore...
probably not. Unless the world gets really, really, really bad in the time between now and when I have school-aged children.
For multiple reasons. One - I'm so introverted that they would have no social skills I'm not saying that 'homeschoolers have no social skills'. I'm not dumb, I have homeschooled friends who get along just fine. I'm saying that because I have no social skills to speak of, unless my husband had the skills I lack and taught them, they wouldn't have any either.
Next, it's a distinct possiblity that both my husband and I will have a job. Then what?
Now. To counteract your 'why would you trust others with your children?' arguments. I wouldn't. Well, I'm trusting them with my child's physical safety while they're at school. I'm not necessarily trusting them with teaching my chilren the right things. But I can talk to them about courses and ideas that don't agree with my faith. Because I will have learned this and will know what arguments I used to stand against it, I can explain it.
A child taught only what their family believes in goes out into the world, learns things he's never heard about before, and with no experience and without the parental backup he had in his childhood, he may well believe them, whether they're right or not.
A child that doesn't happen to has most likely been taught these things in their family anyways, thus you're not changing anything from what they would learn at school. Just as easy to have their teachers teach it to them andthe parents counter it at home, as to have their parents teach it then counter it.

Next. Eventually, you have to come to faith of your own conviction. Someone who lives in a grey concrete community surrounded by a wall with a few other people, and never leaves, will, unless told otherwise, believe that everyone lives in little concrete communities. Someone raised with their parents teaching them Christianity and nothing else will only know Christianity. Which, I know, is what we want. But that's not everything that's out there. Teaching only what you believe is not giving them the knowledge to choose their own path. Having them learn about every option while they are still young gives you the chance to show them why you're right.
So no. probably not. But you asked for it. Are there bad sides? Absolutely. I think they outweigh the good sides.
and not to argue with Sir Emeth, but God also intended for us to choose him. And a choice requires the necessary information. If you intend to give them the necessay information, well, see above.
(By the way, children may want to be homeschooled, but do you want to know why? It's because the public schooled kids are under the impression that at home they won't have to do work and the'll have recess all the time. If my kids, after a couple years of public schooling, told me they wanted to be homeschooled, I would ask why.)
There you are. Your first outright no.

I would never, ever, ever consider anything but homeschooling. I look forward to it very much!

I have never been to public school and have graduated at sixteen.
I want to homeschool my (hopefully someday) future children (God willing) all through their school years. This is always something I have felt strongly about, and it is an opinion I don't think I will be changing anytime in the future.

I do not want to allow teachers and peers to tell them that things the Bible says are dangerous and sinful, are part of growing up and discovering for yourself what is right. Children can be quickly swayed to follow the crowd, and to see their parents' ideals and values as old fashioned.

If God gives me a family, I want to be with them as much as possible. Children are a gift, and I would like to care for those gifts (as many as God provides) to the best of my abilites, to bring glory to God's name.


So there's my two cents. I agree with many of the words of Bushy, Bethy, Azlyn, and Emeth, as well as others.

~ZA

I will homeschool my children. I know the dangers of a public school system and I will love my children far too much to put them in that atmosphere.

Aldara, I would like to point out that children homeschooled by two introverts that are introverted themselves would not lack social skills. So long as the parents know how to appropriately teach their children the correct social skills in a good manner, the children will not be any less functional in "the real world" than they are at home.

Both my sister and I were home schooled all our lives and both of our parents are introverts, though my dad has extrovert qualities about him, as do I. And both of us, though we aren't exactly the class clowns, do have adequate social skills as has been proven time and time again by our interactions with other teenagers and adults twice our age. Rather, we have above average social skills that most adults cannot comprehend. And it's usually unnoticeable, unless we happen to be in a crowd of teenagers, that we are actually rather shy, beyond our tendency to only speak when we have something to say.

That said, even if it turned out that both you and your husband were introverts, homeschooling your children wouldn't cause them to lack in the area of "social skills" the public schoolers are presumed to acquire. In fact, they could end up with better social skills than children that were thrown into a class room and had to suddenly adapt to being surrounded by peers.

I'm not saying that you're incorrect, just merely pointing out that it's possible, even with two introverted parents, that children can have average to above average social skills.

Anyways, I just felt like pointing that out, pardon me if it was off topic or I crossed any sort of invisible line-thing.

Bethany Faith

Bethy, both of my parents are introverts too, and I am an introvert and naturally very shy, and I get complimented on my social skills, especially with adults. So I agree with you 100%! It's very possible!

* chuckles * My dad is one of the most introverted people I know, but he's also the one who taught me the most of anyone about social skills and effective communication. Introverted people aren't socially inept.

Which is one reason why I'll be homeschooling my children... I want to make sure they are taught proper social skills, rather than the broken, stilted, worldly ones of the public schools.

But yes, it would be best to continue the discussion on that in one of the other threads.

Alara, I've learned about the outside world from my church and I read a big variety of different books from different perspectives(perspective of a rebellious teenager who did drugs, perspective of a Christian Grandma raising grandchildren my age and older, perspective of other teenagers my age, etc.). I would so definitely homeschool my children(in many many years).
Children who are homeschooled can probably talk to adults better than public-schoolers.
I do think that the world is getting worse and worse every year, even though Christians are getting stronger and stronger each year(that sort of makes sense because hardship strengthens Christians). Homeschoolers learn how to study on their own and that's what colleges are looking for in college students.
I might not homeschool my children if I only have one child, because that would strip them from children their age. I would keep a very close loving eye on them though. There's another option. There are children who homeschool but they go to a school to take tests on certain days of the week. I might do that, if I have only one child.

@Emeth -I am socially inept. I can have perfectly normal conversations with adults, and with people I'm confortable with, but I cannot start conversations, and I'm not good at participating in conversations between lots of people. My point is that I wouldn't be able to teach my children because I'm not just introverted I'm not at all good at communicating with people. period.
@Emilyn -I would certainly keep a close eye on what they were learning and counteract, if necessary. I just would want them to learn it anyhow.
All of you are talking about homeschooling well. There are some people who can't. Trust me in this. Just as I've seen people with excellent social skills and a great understanding of the world who come from homeschooled families, I've also seen people who are going to have a hard time once they leave home. Yes, this happens to public-schooled kids as well. Everything is a matter of teaching well.
Now, if anyone wants to discuss social skills further...

If I have children, definitely.
I go to public school. I don't like the lack of faith there or the poor education. For me, it's a blessing to have it as a mission field, and there are things I do now that if I was home-schooled I probably would not. But it also really messed me up for about five years of my life. I'd rather keep my children in a Biblical environment for their education.

Quick anecdote - a friend of mine from high school went to a private *cough* Christian *cough* school her entire life (as far as I know) and was incredibly sheltered. Once she graduated and her parents gave her a small amount of independence, she started making bad choices. After she got married and left home, she ended up making some VERY bad choices that resulted in divorce and her moving back into that sheltered environment with her parents.

The problem? Her parents didn't teach her to think. They didn't even let her read a wide range of fiction that would have helped her learn about consequences. I guess my point with this is that you can shelter your children too thoroughly and keep them from learning how to be responsible people no matter which type of schooling they go through. ; Also, regardless of what type of schooling you do, it's possible to teach your kids the lessons they'll need in order to survive in this fallen world - you just have to be proactive.




That's why it's important to teach your children about other philosophies, and explain to them that you don't agree with them, why you don't agree with them, and how you arrived at your conclusion. (No matter where they go to school.)



Not necessarily. A teacher presenting the philosophy in a state-sanctioned manner will present it with more authority (or air of authority, at least) than a parent who disagrees with it. This can influence the student to give it more credence, if this is the first they've heard of that particular concept. If you're forewarning and thus forearming your kid, then you're having to teach it to them first and then shore them up on your viewpoint when they bring home the teacher's arguments from school. Also, a forewarned and forearmed kid may well feel uncomfortable sitting through the lecture, regurgitating the system-approved answers in homework and on tests in order to avoid jeopardizing her grades, or may have a very hard time keeping her mouth shut instead of telling the teacher how it really is. ~_^ Yes, I may be speaking from personal experience here.



Except that schools are not providing information about multiple philosophies in an unbiased manner or encouraging kids to think about them and make a decision. There's definitely a push toward the "progressive" side of the road, since the "separation of church and state" zealots scream bloody murder if a teacher shows his/her students any sign that they might possibly be *gasp* Christian.

As for me and my house.... We intend to homeschool. I bounced around a lot in school: private Christian pre-school, six weeks in public kindergarten before my mom switched me to a private Montessori school because I kept waking up the whole house with screaming nightmares because I was bored out of my mind, public school for first grade, private "Christian" school for second through the middle of fourth grade (Where I met my husband, incidentally. Neither of us had a great overall experience with that school.), public academics and arts magnet school for middle of fourth through seventh grades, homeschooled for eighth, and then private Christian school for all four years of high school. From third grade through seventh, I experienced a lot of abuse from teachers and other students. (Thankfully, it was usually one or the other, not both simultaneously.) I was a square peg, and all the holes were round. It may be one of "the wrong reasons," but I want to homeschool my kids because they'll be individuals, not cattle or statistics. The public schools in my area tend to treat children as cattle or statistics. ~_~

I wouldn't want to teach my kids at home in order to protect them from exposure to cultural elements that don't meet my approval, peer pressure or the like, but it's very tempting to want to spare them the problems that arise with bad teachers and cruel classmates. My parents did their best (one of the reasons I ended up changing schools so much), but to a certain degree with public or private schools you're at the mercy of the system.

AMEN!

Sorry, pet peeve. Continue. I just had to say I am TOTALLY in agreeance on that point. And that is something my parents have strived to ensure is not the case with their children. WE need to be able to survive in this world, and you have to show children right and wrong, and let them be able to recognize it. You can't just tell them "It's wrong, don't do it."

For the first one - that is precisely what I'm trying to say. It's possible -not definate, but possible- that because they have no experience they won't be able to make good choices. Yes, this can happen with Christian Schools as well.
The second one- I have experience with that as well. I've wondered if Alberta's new bill permitting parents to pull kids out of a class if they're talking about religion (they can also be pulled out of health class) would let me get pulled out of science. My parents aren't very keen on that idea, but I figure if they're teaching me something that goes against my faith... Then again, half my class wanted to get out of LA because we were reading a book about a girl who goes on the Crusades.
I have argued with the teacher, actually. We were discussing rights and freedoms, and we listed all the rights one should have. Someone said the right to a homosexual marriage, and so I stuck up for myself there. Unfortunately, at the time I couldn't find the verse that I knew was there, so I had some problems.
The third one - Some things are a part of life. There will be bad teachers even at University, and people don't stop being mean just because you're an adult. You can't spare them everything, and once you've been to school for a few years, you get used to people who like to pick on you because they don't know what you're talking about.
Nice to see that at least I'm making people think.

Oh, and what Airi said above me there. I agree.

It can happen at any school - which was my point.



I don't have the article to hand, but there's scientific evidence that repeating information on an examination changes the way a student views that information. I'm not the least bit familiar with Canadian schools, but in my neck of the woods there's a definite movement in education circles that utilizes the classroom to indoctrinate kids to agree with a more liberal viewpoint.



Some things are indeed a part of life. Abuse should not be.
There are indeed bad professors even at good colleges, but there's a big difference in the way you relate to them: they do not have state-given authority or power over you. When you encounter a bad professor, you have the option of dropping their class and taking it from another instructor, changing your major, or even transferring to another college or University. As a child, you're more at the mercy of the system (unless your parents are very, very involved and also trust you implicitly, at which point they have to make a decision as to whether they should encourage you to hunker down and endure persecution - depending on how severe it is - or to risk alienating the school administration by making a fuss).

As for people still being jerks even when you're older... Yes. But there are options open to you for disuading them from that sort of behavior that are pretty much off-limits in a K-12 setting, and thankfully enough people mature significantly before college that you don't encounter the sort of situation where an entire class chooses one individual to use as their whipping-boy.

And for getting used to it... No. Not everyone does. And in some situations it goes beyond "picking on" to outright abuse, at which point it's pretty much disastrous if they "get used to it."

Obviously you have a different set of life experiences that inform your viewpoint and decisions, but based on my own experiences and knowing what I do about my local school system I would not be comfortable subjecting a child under my care to thirteen years of it. I hope that the schools in your area don't have the problems that I've observed in mine, and I'm sure you'll do the best you can with the resources at your disposal.

The main thing to keep in mind is that there is no single, right answer that applies to every individual and every family. If I found that one of my children struggled in a homeschooling environment and that they wanted to try a private or public school, I would pray for guidance and probably give them that option.

And while I can't speak for anyone else in the "thinking" department, I pretty much came to these conclusions right about the time you were born. ~_^

I can not answer this question yet, and personally, I do not think that anyone who has posted their answer in this forum can answer for sure either. I doubt that any of you have children. Maybe your opinion will change from now to that point of your life. I am not saying that any of your point of views are wrong, but just wait a while and see what God has planned for you first.

I can say for sure for myself, because my answers come not from experience (though I've had that too), but from Scripture. Scripture must inform our decisions first and foremost, not experience, culture, or theories.

*agrees *

I think that if you are homeschooled yourself, and especially if you have siblings who you've watched be homeschooled or whom you've helped homeschool, you have ample experience to sufficiently inform your decisions, especially if they are founded on doctrine, not experience itself.

Agreed. Entirely. This also has been something my parents have done with my siblings and I. A lot of people think that throwing their children into the deep end of public school will make them swim, i.e. learn everything they will need to know to survive in life. However, the children may never have been in some of the situations a public school provides, and have not been taught how to deal with them. So instead of "learning" what they should do, they either follow their peers' example, or act purely upon instinct.

One has to remember that as parents, they have lived this life. They have made mistakes, and (hopefully) learned from them. Their knowledge is not limited to mere reading or writing. They have knowledge that encompasses just about every area of living in this world. Whereas a school teacher's job is to simply teach academic subjects, a parent can teach on all subjects. Herein lies the advantage to homeschooling.

My parents have striven to teach all of my siblings and I how to live, what the right decisions are, what the wrong decisions are, the best ways to deal with things, and what God says about it all. My parents have always been open to questions, any questions, we may wish to ask and have given us their perspective and wisdom on them all. Their teaching encompasses everything from simple good manners, to cultivating good relationships.

I have learned to greet strangers in spite of my shyness.

I have learned how to look a person in the eye and shake their hand firmly.

I have learned that if I feel threatened, I should run and find help.

I have learned how to deal with relationship conflicts in a Godly way.

I have learned how to protect my younger siblings.

I have learned to base my decisions on God's Word.

I'm not saying that one cannot learn these things in a public school. I have a cousin who is a great young man who went to a public school his whole life. He is well mannered, God-fearing, and a brilliant example to those he is around. However, there is one key thing that made this difference: his Mum was heavily involved in all areas of his schooling life. Nothing happened at school that my aunt didn't know about, and she taught him what was right and wrong the whole way through. This - in itself - was a big example to me of how fully equipped and able parents are at teaching their children.

The major issue is: children can't grow up to be adults who make right decisions in life if their parents don't a) tell them what the right decisions are, and b) explain to them why the wrong decisions are wrong. Teachers at public schools don't teach life skills, and don't particularly care what the children do outside of their teaching hours. One might say that the parents can teach children what they need to know in the time they aren't at school, but the ratio of input from the parents and school would be along the lines of 2:5. The amount of instruction (or lack of) a child receives at school far outweighs whatever a parent may be able to impart in the time they aren't there.

The Bible even tells us that we become like the people we hang around. It's inescapable. There is not much good influence at a public school. Children from every variety of background attend, and not all of them bring good habits from their homes. Children are impressionable, and as children, I believe that parents are the ones most capable of giving them the example they need to follow, rather than same-aged peers who would not impart Godly behaviour.

That was my rather hefty two cents that may leave me open for an equally hefty counterargument.

* Applauds Bushy* <--closest I could get to clapping smiley.


Emeth, I agree with what you said there. At this current time in life, I have absolutely no doubt that my children, if I have children, will be homeschooled. As I person who is not found of change and likes to stick to previously decided things, I also doubt that will change. Unless for some reason I have to work and my kids are in need of an education (And even then I doubt it) I still don't want to see my kids darken the door of a public school.

Well said, Bushy. I have seen this happen with far to many good kids I once knew, who have picked up swears and bad language, as well as many other nasty things, and I never want that to happen to my kids. Never is a strong word, and one I do not use lightly. But on the subject of people being impressionable, especially children, I freely admit that most of my strong opinions about this matter are from my parents and from my experience. Therefore, I will try and keep an open mind about this, although I can tell you, unless God clearly tells my to send my kids to school, they will be homeschooled.

There was my less-hefty-then-Buhsy's two cents.

I agree with you there, Jay.

A Bushy monster post! I enjoyed that, thank you, Bushy.

I can say with much certainty, that I will homeschool my kids. Not only because I believe it is the Biblical thing to do, but also because of the rampant adultery and general ungodliness in public schools where I come from. (That may not be the case for some of you, so no offense.) I couldn't, absolutely couldn't send my kids to an atheist teacher to unlearn everything that I carefully instill in their minds at home. (In fact, that's on my husband list - he has to be willing to homeschool.) I apologize if I have offended anyone with the rant up there ^, but I am very passionate about the subject.