Disadvantages of home schooling ?

Question:
My son and his wife are considering home schooling their 3 children. They know all the good things that home schooling provides and are wondering about the disadvantages. I have a few questions.

What are the disadvantages ( or the downside) of home schooling ?

If you had a good Christian school in your town would you still home school your children? If yes, why?

Answer:
-We started homeschooling our daughter in the 3rd grade. She's now completing the sixth grade at home. We will continue homeschooling for at least the next couple of years. While I consider homeschooling to be a wonderful alternative to a public school system that has gone (and continues to go) downhill fast, it does present its challenges. We weighted private and Christian schools against homeschooling, and I'll tell you what we found.

First of all, private schools were just beyond our financial reach. Period.

Second, the really good Christian schools were also quite expensive. We probably would've opted for a Christian schools if we could've afforded the ones we liked. But like most things, you get that for which you pay. Placing the title, "Christian", in front of a school name does not make for a quality school. Some are no better than your standard public schools.

So we opted for homeschooling. We were told the first year would be the toughest, and I suppose it was. The "learning curve" was greater for us than it was for our daughter! If you want to consider it a downside, the effort to put together a curriculum best suited to your child is considerable. My wife takes her teaching position very seriously, and she invested considerable time piecing together different academic packages to assemble what was best suited to our daughter's needs.

Another possible downside is the continual time and patience required to keep your child going. This is primarily a struggle from my wife's perspective, because she is the primary educator. I've seen my wife looking absolutely frazzled after a challenging "day at school." Kids will be kids, and sometimes they just aren't motivated to learn. It add the responsibility to the parent to help them find the motivation.

I must also point out what I consider to *not* be downsides. One is socialization. I find it humorous when people express concern over the social skills our daughter is not developing by not being in a public school. Those social "skills" are one of the reasons we started homeschooling in the first place! The socialization learned in today's public schools is not what we want for our children. We want our daughter to respect authority figures. Public educators cannot enforce that respect today with the ACLU jumping down their throats for violating the student's rights of individuality. We want our daughter to find confidence and contentment within herself, not through the latest designer fashions and in-groups.

The variety of topics is also not a downsize. Some well-meaing family members were worried about our daughter missing out on science, theater, music, etc... We're now homeschooling in our 3rd state. In each place, we've encountered large support groups of homeschoolers. Within those groups have been the resources to expose our daughter to all aspects of academic topics. A major benefit of homeschooling is that we can then adjust our schedule/curriculum to give our daughter more of what she really finds to be interesting. Since we've been homeschooling, our daughter has been in two plays and one ballet recital--all through these support groups. In addition, my daughter has probably gone on more field trips than I ever went on by her age. And when she goes on a field trip, she gets one on one attention from her teachers! (My father-in-law, a PhD in Physics, was a real doubter of homeschooling until he took our daughter on a science field trip. He was won over that day; not just by the education impact the trip had on the small group of students, but also by how well behaved they all are.)

I hope I haven't given you more than you wanted. Homeschooling is not "an easy way out." It is time intensive, challenging, and just a lot of work for parents and children. But it also works. People such as Einstein and Sandra Day O'Conner were homeschooled. Personally, I'm glad you're doing some research into the topic and not just telling your son and daughter-in-law they're off their rockers for thinking of such a thing. I would advise you to be involved in their homeschooling, if that's what they decide, and take advantage of getting to take your grandchildren on some wonderful field trips!

-The biggest downside to home schooling is that children are known for doing things for people other than their parents. This includes memorizing multiplication facts and working from a spelling list. This is not a very big downside tho, as eventually the parent does get thru to the child that this is an important thing to do .

I can't think of anything else that would be considered a downside or disadvantage to home schooling.

As for having a good Christian school in my town, there is one but we are Catholic and the closest Parochial school is at least a half hour drive away in good traffic - rush hour could add 1/2 hour. I still would not send my children to a parochial school at this point. I might have at one time, but I see too many advantages outweighing the disadvantages to quit home schooling now!