Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments homeschooling responses

I wish the schools could understand that. When my kids start to shut down if something gets difficult, I encourage them to keep trying and remind them about how good they'll feel when they finally do it. And they always get so excited when they accomplish something they thought was "too hard!"

Val

I think the negative responses from others has to do with lack of knowledge, combined with some very bad examples of homeschooling, and little exposure to children that are homeschooled. I have to say that I knew little about homeschooling, and the few examples of children that I knew that were homeschooled (even some in my family) were not so good. Maybe it is the way things were done, maybe the socialization wasn't as good as it should be, but whatever the case it lead to some negative outcomes socially. I am sure public school can lead to negative outcomes as well, just a larger sample so harder to pinpoint. I have heard of some great things that homeschoolers are doing. But I have also heard of parents that pull their kids out of school and say they are homeschooling but don't (I have had parents with mental health issues that pull kids out and no one can keep any tabs on these children). Being a school social worker, that is quite concerning. I have also had parents that say they are homeschooling and don't do it...and kids start failing and then parents stick them back in public school and they are quite behind. After being more educated on it, for some kids I think it is a great option, but it has to be a good fit for parents and for kids. That is too bad that when you say it you get an immediate reaction like that. I wish people were more open minded.

My homeschooled son went with his dad and me to a reunion of a small group of Vietnam vets who had worked as linguists or had done jobs like crypto analysis or signals intelligence. We saw pictures of some of these men when they were young and some of them looked like geeky nonconformists. My husband said they got away with some things that other soldiers couldn't so they had some interesting stories to tell.

Several of the wives told me they thought homeschooling was a good thing and one of them told me she wished she could have homeschooled her children. When we went on a trolley tour and stopped at a local museum, some of them took time to point out interesting things to him and he felt comfortable enough with them that he left me to talk to some other members of the group. I guess he found them more interesting because he left me and his dad behind. They want us to bring him with us when they have their next reunion. One of guys wants my son to do a report over what he learned on this trip and send him a copy of it.

That's great! What a compliment. I definitely think that homeschooling is a really good fit for some kids. That's great that you can do it.