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Catholic Homeschooling - MISTAKES
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Question:
Life is always going to be a mixture of successes and failures.
Homeschooling is no different.....
The other extreme is taking the attitude that homeschool parents can do no
wrong and that no matter what you do, your children will be better off than
if they are in school. Homeschool parents, like everyone else, are subject
to fallen nature and are prone to mistakes. .... Taking them out of a
problematic school shouldn't give you an excuse to give them an inferior
academic education.
I have seen many books and articles by homeschool "experts" which seem to
take on this attitude of "homeschool parents can do no wrong." I believe
these authors are reacting to those who fall in the first extreme (of
over-worry) and that they are trying to instill a sense of confidence in
homeschool parents.
....
Mistake #1: Being Presumptious about Your Child's Moral Formation
Evil and temptation do not exist solely in the outside world. Isolating your
children from the outside world will not save their souls. We are all
subject to temptation and fallen nature. Homeschooled children are no
different. Almost every sort of problem experienced by children in
conventional schools have also happened to some homeschool children.
Homeschooled children have run away from home, become addicted to illegal
drugs, become pregnant out of wedlock, gotten into trouble with the police,
etc. Basically, you can't presume that just because they're home with you,
that they're going to turn out great.
Aside from that, it is impossible to keep out every bad influence that comes
from the "outside world." ...
It's probably not any better to fall into the opposite extreme. Being
overprotective and distrustful of your children and even agonizing with
worry about how they will turn out can have a very negative impact on their
faith.
Answer:
Hardly. They do tend to talk about how to do a good job
homeschooling, however, which sort of implies that it's possible to do a bad job.
I just don't see why someone would have to be told how.
I'll leave in the "mistake" cited below. It's sort of interesting to
have repeatedly made the argument that it's not possible to isolate your
children by homeschooling them so many times and then have someone
turn around and argue that the presumption about building your child's
moral foundation in isolation is wrong because it's not possible to
isolate them.
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