Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Prospective Homeschool Parents: Part 4 of 5: Negatives of Homeschooling



This is part four in my five-part continuing series of blog posts 
for parents who are considering the homeschool lifestyle.

Have you been online this evening readingreadingreading and looking for information on homeschooling?  Are you considering homeschooling your children and would love to read some advice from seasoned homeschooling parents?  

I've got some great news for your search:  You have found what you are looking for!

Allow me to simplify your research exploration!  I have a large group of friends who homeschool with over 100 combined years of experience between us.  To gather information for you, I asked them all to fill out a survey of sorts, looking for wisdom to share with prospective homeschooling parents.  Sit back and relax that brain and keyboarding wrist of yours and read here for awhile, because what you are looking for is right here!


It's time to find out what the seasoned homeschooling parents 
give as answers to this question:

What are the negative aspects of homeschooling?


Angie Says:

 There still isn't enough time in the day for everything we want to learn and play!
 I make sure to note special milestones, but I'm unsure if it's enough. 
There's a reason teachers look forward to summer break. 
You need some downtime to look back at what you've accomplished.

Cynthia:

 I get no time that's just mine although that's getting better as they grow up.

 Rayven:

 I'm never alone. Some days that can be too much.

 Rebecca:

The negatives of homeschooling for us are the lack of extra-mural activities 
like sports, drama etc. There is nowhere in our area for them to do things 
like this apart from at school and our schools don't let homeschoolers join in.

 Cathy:

 The negatives have really been the negatives of parenting, not of homeschooling. 
When to push, when to coddle, when to help, when to leave alone...
there are some tricky aspects to parenting, but thank goodness 
having mutual trust and respect goes a long way
 toward avoiding some mistakes and fixing mistakes you do make!

 Darlene:

 No negatives, except for the nosy jealous invested types 
who like to think my kid is locked in a basement; 
think I am making a judgement about their parenting; 
or think I'm making a judgement about their teaching in schools.

Shannon:

 The negatives are pretty minimal but my son and I do butt heads sometimes,
 particularly with handwriting. It can also be a little draining
 to be with the kids 24/7 for every week of the year. 
The other negative is that my pleasure reading has gone downhill! 
We are using a very literature-based program right now so at the end of the day 
I don't really WANT to read my own books. 
I hope to change that soon and honestly it happens a lot in the winter anyway
 since spring/summer means I can sit on the front porch in the sun and read. 
It isn't so easy in the winter.

And, as for me:

My daughter is, as I've written before, pretty uncooperative. 
And that's no fun.
That's the absolute worst for me.
Our house has lots of HS materials. I've learned alot about organization!





~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you enjoyed this post you might try: 

2 comments:

  1. Interesting perspective. I've been there on the pure exhaustion with kids, but then, I know if we don't bring school home, its less stressful.

    Question: How do you homeschool as an atheist and stay out of the evangelical drama? Just curious because every homeschool group I know is soooo Christian.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Back home we live in a large enough town that we have found an entirely secular group. Everyone in the group meschools for secular reasons. (Not to say that everyone is atheist, in fact there are so many different religious traditions in this group that my kids have the good fortune of being around Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Pagan, and many other traditions.) My point is that the group is large enough that we don't have to deal with any of that evangelical thing. But our town also has the evangelical Christian groups, several of them in fact.
      We simply choose our friends for their ability to love and accept people regardless of religion. I do have a few friends back home who are very Christian and who do question me... But I think we have found a way to be friends anyway...

      OH, and down here in Australia, religion is private. NO ONE we have come into contact with has that Conservative Christian vibe.

      Delete

Leave a comment!