Should you homeschool for special time with just one child?
A mom told me that she is pulling her fourth-grader to homeschool him just for this year. She has several reasons but her main reason is she wants to spend special time with him while he still wants to spend time with her.
She does have a younger school-age child who will continue to go their normal school. She’s promised that child that in fourth grade she’ll let that child stay home too.
Her oldest child is very excited about working with his mom. They plan to create a blog for him to write to share about his studies and all the things they check out around the city.
The mom feels like doing the work at home will allow them to get it done faster and move on to the things they want to do. Also it will allow them to still do all his after-school sports with less time constraints.
I think he will still get to see his friends from school and will still be social but he won’t be at the school.
I don’t think even if it goes really well she’s open to the idea of homeschooling permanently. I think she thinks it would be too hard to homeschool multiple children at once, and I also think she thinks the curriculum is going to get harder to teach in middle school.
So what do you think: Good idea or bad idea to pull a child for just one year to spend special time with them? If it is successful should she consider continuing on even into the higher grades? What do you think of letting each child have a special year at home with mom?
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66 comments Add your comment
DB
July 29th, 2010
2:21 pm
@penguinmom: I would tend to agree with you, as long as the parent knows they are dealing with a disability. In the case I was describing, the parent simply did not recognize that their child had a pretty severe reading disability until they realized that, in comparison to other kids, the child was waaaay behind. They are in a public H.S. now, but is a year behind, and are still struggling. I can’t help but wonder if it would have been so hard for them if it had been caught much, much earlier.
@A: “You might as well send your kid to one of those christian schools.” You mean, like Notre Dame? *turn sarcasm on* Yeah, those Christian schools really mess kids up. *turn sarcasm off*. Heaven forbid that a child goes to a school that supports the faith beliefs of a family and allows them to incorporate their faith beliefs into a major portion of their young lives — their schooling. Do you have the same issues with Jewish schools, too? Or is it just the Christian ones? Both of my kids went to a well-regarded Christian school for all 13 years. And, all modesty aside, they are damn fine kids who were well-prepared for the top-tier colleges they attend. They are universally considered to be well-mannered, intelligent and charming, and if THAT’S what a Christian school does for you, then I fail to see the problem.
“If you try to be all things to all people, you end up with nothing for anyone.”
A
July 29th, 2010
2:47 pm
No, it’s pretty much christian schools. I find the teaching (and the quality of the teachers) to be inadequate, the curriculum suspect and the kids encouraged to believe in an imaginary friend in the sky. I’d like my kids to grow up in the reality based world. I’m sure your children are lovely but I would posit that it has more to do with you and your husband than christian schooling. Secularists are upstanding, too. I have to stop trolling now because I promised TWG I would. Going away forever now.
Last post.
Rich
July 29th, 2010
2:51 pm
A – I thought that Emory University (Methodist) was a good school. Silly me.
DB
July 29th, 2010
2:52 pm
@A: It’s just like any school, public or private. Some are great. Some stink. Responsible parents try to make sure that their kids are in the best situation possible. Sometimes that’s homeschooling. Sometimes that’s private, and sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ve got a really good public school option.
A
July 29th, 2010
2:57 pm
Ok, I forgot my hat. And one last thing before I go: home schooling is a k-12 phenomenon (I hope). Notre Dame and Emory are colleges.
Bye.
JATL
July 29th, 2010
4:33 pm
@WarriorWoman -we weren’t speaking to you. We were specifically speaking to David S who chimes in quite frequently with a holier-than-thou attitude and bashes all of us who use public schools or EVER let another soul watch or teach our kids as less than adequate parents. He seems to have oodles of free time to take his children all over the place and homeschool then -so goody for him. Read our posts more clearly -this has nothing to do with you and we were NOT talking about all homeschoolers. Most of the ones I know can barely string a paycheck together and are religious nuts.
irisheyes
July 29th, 2010
4:52 pm
@Warrior Woman, pretty much what JATL said. David S seems to advocate a free market for education where all schools are private, and the government is completely out of the education business. I mean, we could have a system like India or Cambodia where education is not completely free, but do we want their levels of illiteracy? I have no problem with people homeschooling, and nowhere in my posts did I say that. As a public school teacher, though, I am an advocate for public schools because they do fill a vital need. Getting rid of them will mean that there will be a permanent underclass of undereducated (or even uneducated) citizens in this country. Is that really what people want?
www.honeyfern.org
July 29th, 2010
5:07 pm
If you read any of the history of public schools, you will see that Rich is correct, not elitist. Factories needed workers educated minimally in the most efficient fashion, in the most uniform way. Public schools were created to do that. In some cases, this was a very, very good thing; people who would normally have ZERO opportunity to work their way out of grinding poverty at least got a boost. In other cases, this was very, very bad; gifted students and students at the very opposite end have not been served, for the most part, to their fullest potential in public school.
I have a Master’s degree in education, and am Georgia-certified Master teach with 11 years of experience, and I left public school this year to start a non-profit gifted homeschool/educational consulting business, as well as to homeschool my own child. Public school is not changing to fit the new needs of global business, and students are, indeed, being left behind.
People homeschool and go to public/private school for all kinds of reasons, and I think a little tolerance goes a long way. I would be willing to be there is more to the story than the short paragraph above.
penguinmom
July 29th, 2010
6:08 pm
@A – LOL! I actually like freaks. They make life much more interesting.
Most homeschooled kids I know think the typical ‘awkward homeschooler’ stereotype is pretty funny. There is even a facebook page by homeschooled kids making jokes about homeschooling. The vast majority of homeschooled kids I’m around weekly (between 50-100 kids each week) are actually very enjoyable to be around and have a wide range of friends. They tend to accept all of their fellow students no matter what their looks/likes/skills/ages are.
Beck
July 29th, 2010
11:42 pm
If parents choose homeschooling because they think it will best serve their child’s educational needs and have the means to do it and do it well, so be it.
If she wants to homeschool because she wants more time with her child she needs some friends and an avocation or even a vocation. Couldn’t she spend time with him after school if she gets him out of some of the myriad of activities?
I just can’t see school being the thing that gets dropped when you’re juggling time with your kid, school for the kid and after-school activities.
Bruce
July 30th, 2010
2:22 pm
We have home-schooled three children and our oldest just graduated from our home school. It is the only school she has attended. She scored at 1340 on the SAT. She made straight A’s in dual-enrollment with our local college. She dances, plays the piano and plans to pursue a career in architecture. She is very involved in our church at many different levels; she works in a local restaurant and is socially very well adjusted. Our two younger daughters are doing very well also. Homeschooling is an excellent way to educate children. Yes, there are all types of results and all types of children and families in homeschooling. But, there is also a wide variety of results in students who attend public schools as well. By the way, SCAD, the Savannah School of Art and Design, was at our home school convention recruiting students.
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July 31st, 2010
7:23 am
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www.honeyfern.org
July 31st, 2010
10:23 am
A good book to read to actually homeschool your high school student is Blake Boles’ College Without High School. Very, very good, and helps even non-homeschooling parents see how it can work.
Homeschool Circus
July 31st, 2010
3:12 pm
This woman is homeschooling her 4th grader for HERSELF – not for his benefit. Homeschooling is not merely doing school during set hours, it is a learning lifestyle which can take place at any time, at any place and throughout the weekends. She needs a new focus!!!
http://upatdawnreadytowork.blogspot.com/
Kimberly
July 31st, 2010
7:23 pm
Kudos to this mother for homeschooling her child, even if it’s just for a year (but who knows, they both may enjoy it so much that they continue!). Studies show that homeschoolers perform head and shoulders above BOTH their public school and private school counterparts, both socially and academically (regardless of their parents’ education level!). Just because you’ve known a homeschooling family or two that YOU didn’t find to be competent or successful, doesn’t mean that the majority of them don’t do well. I’ve had horrible teachers in public school, does that mean ALL public school teachers are horrible? Not at all.
Furthermore, homeschoolers in general spend MUCH more time in the real world than public-schooled children do – they are not confined to their home 24/7, they go out into the world and volunteer, mix with ALL ages instead of just their age-mates and are likely more ready for the “world” and higher education than most public-schooled kids. No teacher can teach a child as well as the parent who loves them. Any teacher worth his/her salt will tell you that you can’t teach a child one iota unless you have rapport with that child, a connection. Every parent is their child’s first teacher, homeschooling just extends that :)
Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Homeschooling Secrets Revealed! - Kari Apted ~ a splash of pink in a house of blue
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