[legion]

Complicated topic.

I'm not saying this is your situation, but let me relay the story of a friend who homeschools. This is more of a cautionary tale that illustrates some of the pitfalls.

A friend of mine has four kids. There is no question that his wife wears the pants in the family. He goes along with whatever she says. His wife has a degree in early childhood education. She worked for a day care for a few years, but this facility had a habit of firing any employee that lasted longer than three years to keep costs down. She opened her own, in home daycare when she got fired (which I do believe was no fault of her own).

When their oldest was five, they sent her to kindergarten. She (the daughter) complained loudly about "not liking" kindergarten. In my opinion, by this age, the daughter had already figured out that persistent whining would get her what she wanted. So mom met with the teacher, and mom met with the school administrators, and mom decided that her daughter was not getting enough personal attention from the school. Two months in, and mom pulled her from kindergarten and decided to home school the daughter--while at the same time running a daycare (more on this later).

A couple years later, the next oldest wanted to go to school, so mom sent the girls back to public school. The oldest was now in 2nd grade, and the next oldest was in kindergarten. The 2nd oldest loved kindergarten, the oldest still whined about not liking school. Mom had meetings with teachers and administrators again, and again concluded that her oldest daughter was not getting adequate attention from her teachers. About two months into the school year, she pulled both girls from public school and elected to homeschool them both.

So here we are, 10 years later. The oldest two girls have attended public school briefly. The oldest is allegedly a sophomore in high school and the next oldest is allegedly in 8th grade. The next daughter and youngest son have never attended public school and have never been given the option. "Homeschooling" for these kids consists of each of them having a tablet loaded with their grade-specific curriculum. The kids all know that they can pretty much play all day long while mom tends to the daycare and whine themselves out of any schoolwork they don't want to do. Each of the kids is severely deficient in some critical skill. The oldest cannot write a paper. One of the other girls had trouble with basic math. It turns out, mom didn't really have time to give the kids enough personal attention.

The kids also have trouble relating to other kids their age because they are basically ignorant of how a school works and they have never been aware of or participated in any extra-curricular activities.

I think in this case, all of the kids would have been better served in public school rather than by "homeschooling". I think the parents should have ignored a 5 year old whining and not treated it as a serious problem, and definitely not let it impact how they educated the other 3 children.

Mike, I'm not saying that this is your situation at all, but I think that it illustrates some of the potential downsides to homeschooling if proper care is not taken.