And why
they are not insurmountable obstacles.
By Paula Bolyard
In a recent article at Cafe Mom, Ericka Souter listed 7 reasons she could never homeschool
her teen. They are all fairly common concerns that most parents wrestle
with as they decide whether to continue homeschooling through the middle school
and high school years and I’d like to address them:
1. I
could probably get him through algebra and geometry, but we’d both need a tutor
when it came to calculus. Sure, I took it in high school but it was in one ear
and out the other as soon as the final was finished.
One thing that homeschoolers discover early on is that they learn
along with their children. Most parents realize fairly quickly that there were
gaps in their own education and they remedy the situation by plunging right
into the learning process with their kids. With math, for example, parents not
only review what they already know, but they fill in gaps as they work through
the curriculum, progressively adding to their own skills as they teach their
children. Many homeschooling books are designed to walk parents through every
step of teaching various subjects, some even including video lectures.
If parents are uncomfortable teaching higher-level classes such as
calculus and physics, they have a wealth of resources at their disposal. Some
parents enroll their children in online classes for subjects they find
challenging, while others, like our family, join co-ops in which parents pool
their skills and teach classes to small groups of homeschoolers. In our co-op,
a homeschooling mom who is a physician taught biology and a dad who is a
mechanical engineer taught physics. We used a video-assisted program for
pre-calculus, and my older son took discrete math at a local university during
his senior year of high school. The array of options is almost dizzying.
2. I
can’t imagine his first intense classroom setting being a college lecture. Talk
about intimidating.
I must admit that I don’t know a single homeschooling parent or
student who really worries about this one. One thing about homeschooling is
that the children tend to spend time with people of all ages rather than in
age-segregated classrooms. By the time they graduate from homeschool high
school, most have spent a great deal of time in adult settings, where they
learned to interact with the community in the “real world.” Most have attended
classes of some sort (Sunday school, co-op classes, etc.) and understand the
protocol for classroom behavior. Really, it does not take 13 years of training
to learn how to sit at a desk, raise your hand, and answer questions when
called upon. The majority of home-schooled students are bright, articulate, and
confident and have no trouble adjusting to a classroom setting.
3. We’d
get sick of each other by week four two.
“I wouldn’t want my kids home all day — I don’t have the
patience.” I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard this when I told
people we were homeschooling. I’ve always been tempted to respond, “What does
it say about your parenting that you have raised children you can’t stand to be
around?” It sometimes seems like people have children and then immediately
begin counting the days until they can put them on the school bus so they can
have some peace and quiet. Some of this is because parents know what their
children are like when they get off that bus: cranky, exhausted, and not
especially pleasant to be with. They don’t realize that homeschooling changes
the whole family dynamic. A family that spends all or most of its time together
not only avoids the jarring transition from school to home every day, but also
gets to spend the best part of the day together. During that time, parents
constantly mentor their children and model good behavior for them. One of the
blessings of homeschooling is that the children are more influenced by their
parents than their peers and so they naturally enjoy being together, even in
the teen years.
Before we had kids of our own, my husband and I volunteered as
youth leaders in our church and there met our first homeschooling families. We
were shocked to meet teens who not only weren’t embarrassed to be around their
parents, but who actually enjoyed being with them. These kids actually
volunteered their parents when we needed chaperons for a sleepover or a
retreat. Though we saw this occasionally from public school students, it was
consistent with the homeschooled kids, one of the rewards of spending so much
time together.
4. When
he complains about his bit**y teacher, he’ll be talking about me.
Years ago I heard something that changed the way I thought about
teenagers: “Rebellion is not God’s plan for the family.” As a culture, we have
bought into the lie that it’s normal for teenagers to rebel and to dislike
their parents. While it may be “normal” in our culture, it hasn’t always been
that way and we should reject the notion that teenage rebellion is inevitable.
If you spend any time with kids who were homeschooled, you’ll
likely hear a discussion about who had the strictest parents — they’ll try to
one-up each other with complaints of “I wasn’t allowed to watch TV growing up”
or “my mom made us do all the Saxon math practice problems, not just the
odd numbers!” My older son tells his friends about how he used to sneak down to
the family room to watch Liberty Kids whenever I was sick with a
migraine, and my younger son laments that he’s the only kid he knows who hasn’t
seen all the Disney movies a dozen times. The competition is a unique
homeschool-geek-culture phenomenon — all in fun — and most of those kids will tell
you (and their friends) that they are grateful for their parents and appreciate
being home-schooled. Many of them will go on to be just as strict with their
own kids.
5. When I
complain about my crappy job, I’ll be talking about him.
See #3
6. I can’t
teach him the same survival instincts you learn navigating your way though mean
girls, jocks, geeks, or whichever else cliques exist these days.
Let’s be honest. Many of the behaviors that go on in the public
schools, especially those associated with bullying, are punishable by firing in
the workplace. And spending six hours a day confined to a room with thirty
people the exact same age as you is nothing like any place of employment the
student will ever encounter. Being told when and where to sit, when you may use
the restroom, and when (and what) you may eat is more similar to a penal
institution than a business environment. Also, see #2.
7. I’m
not a trained educator. Parents love to complain about their kids’ teachers,
but it’s a tough job. Probably one of the toughest. It’s a combo of instructor,
counselor, soother, conflict resolution expert, and motivator. How exhausting
is that?!
All of the skills listed above are basic parenting competencies,
whether or not a family homeschools. What parent hasn’t refereed sibling
conflicts, soothed hurt feelings, or dealt with unmotivated children?
Homeschooling is just a matter of applying those basic parenting skills to
educating one’s own children. While teachers in brick-and-mortar schools may
need special training to manage a classroom of thirty children, tutoring a few
students does not require such training. In fact, many former teachers who
choose to homeschool find their education training to be a hindrance and that
they need to retrain themselves in order to adjust to the close, personal
tutoring situation.
No one denies that homeschooling can be challenging — the teen
years are no exception. But homeschooling also brings unique benefits that can
actually make the teen years more enjoyable and less tumultuous. It is well
worth the challenges.
Recently "retired" from homeschooling, Paula is an
unapologetic Christian and Constitutional conservative. She lives in N.E. Ohio
with her husband, three dogs, and two parrots. Her elder son is a senior at
Hillsdale College in Michigan and her younger son is attending Baptist Bible
College in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania.
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