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For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

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Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#581

Post by silverpepsi »

licebmi__at__ wrote: post #405
silverpepsi wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I heard a few years back put my life experience as a kid in perspective. At least for me, in the most important way possible, it doesn't sound like regular school at all. The main deep life impacting characteristic of standard public schools is coerced unwelcome company. You're forced by law to be around the same bullies for 5, 10, even 12 years. The natural order with organic friendships (and indeed probab…

> Parents won't force their kids to continue to be around others they dislike Ha, you would be surprised. Parents will totally force kids to be around people they dislike. I mean my parents knew that I was bullied in my private, free association school. Even after one asshole pulled a knife on me and the school wouldn’t do a thing because he was from a rich family in my small town, they still decided to kept me in th…

I see the importance of any argument I'm making on being the best bet for 95% of humans. No policy governing humans is ever going to make imperfect humans perfect, but policies can and do go to far to where they're a detriment to a huge percentage

It sounds like your parents were uncool or unreasonable and that sucks, sorry. But I think it's not objective to let it make you think all that was the norm as an adult.

My parents were religious nuts. But as an adult I realized how lucky I was. They actually don't have any personality defects such as powerlusting or being egotistical about respect, so as a kid I very definitely avoided all the worst experiences kids often go through growing up with just the minor annoyance of forced bible studies or church visits (in perspective really an annoyance at worst)

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#582

Post by mym1990 »

bequanna wrote: post #473
gemstones wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the exact same also homeschooled. It’s also interesting being in this thread with homeschooling parents - I remember hearing about how “homeschool groups provide the same level of socialization” back then, and it wasn’t any more true then than it is today. Schooled kids get 8 hours a day with peers and you get 1 if you’re lucky. Not the same.

> Schooled kids get 8 hours a day with peers As a parent, I have no say over who these “peers” are, how they treat my child, or what BS they try to push on them. As someone who was surrounded by some pretty bad kids during High School I am very comfortable with my children not getting that experience.

Its actually hilarious that in another comment you say 'Today is the greatest time in the history of our species to be alive', but yet you can't overcome the fear of sending your kids out in public.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#583

Post by AlwaysRock »

sdsd wrote: post #81
AlwaysRock wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as a counterpoint... I was homeschooled from 2nd grade until sophomore year of high school. I played sports the entire time (was the captain of various teams), had plenty of friends, and was pretty social. Even still, I felt like my social skills were significantly stunted when compared to others my age. It took a long time for me to feel comfortable just hanging out with others because most of my social time wa…

If it makes you feel better, I was public schooled, and a lot of the kids seemed to have really awful social skills. This kind of numb mindlessness. Not everyone, but it was too widespread. Something about sitting still doing nothing for 7 hours, surrounded by people but forbidden from interacting with them. I'm sure there were many benefits but public schools don't seem to be doing great at socializing kids.

In general, schools do a fine job. Do they do an exceptional job in every case? No. But most people who go to public schools end up with okay social skills. I really don't think the same can be said of home school kids. Or at least those same social skills will take dedicated work to develop and may not materialize until well into adulthood.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#584

Post by AlwaysRock »

opportune wrote: post #249
AlwaysRock wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as a counterpoint... I was homeschooled from 2nd grade until sophomore year of high school. I played sports the entire time (was the captain of various teams), had plenty of friends, and was pretty social. Even still, I felt like my social skills were significantly stunted when compared to others my age. It took a long time for me to feel comfortable just hanging out with others because most of my social time wa…

I went to regular school from K-12 and I also felt like my social skills were significantly stunted for a long time. Which is not to say that homeschooling can’t negatively impact your social skills, but that plenty of kids experience stunted social skills, social anxiety, awkwardness, introversion even with regular schooling. Also as an adult I gotta say, in most ways it’s traditionally schooled kids who are “stunte…

I don't know if I would equate adult like with social skills. I was very comfortable talking to adults. I was a kid and knew how to behave fine. I was not comfortable talking to kids my own age who I didnt already know very well.

I would imagine any kid who is viewed as lacking social skills who attends a regular school would be worse off socially if they were home schooled. But I don't have any data to back that up other than knowing lots of home school kids.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#585

Post by AlwaysRock »

edmundsauto wrote: post #71
AlwaysRock wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as a counterpoint... I was homeschooled from 2nd grade until sophomore year of high school. I played sports the entire time (was the captain of various teams), had plenty of friends, and was pretty social. Even still, I felt like my social skills were significantly stunted when compared to others my age. It took a long time for me to feel comfortable just hanging out with others because most of my social time wa…

I was public schooled and also felt uncomfortable sitting around hanging out, without a purpose or a goal or activity. May not be home schooling that is the cause - people are just different.

I feel that same way but I wouldnt lump that in with social skills. When I went to a public high school we didnt do a lot of sitting around and hanging out. We went to classes.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#586

Post by AlwaysRock »

bequanna wrote: post #473
gemstones wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the exact same also homeschooled. It’s also interesting being in this thread with homeschooling parents - I remember hearing about how “homeschool groups provide the same level of socialization” back then, and it wasn’t any more true then than it is today. Schooled kids get 8 hours a day with peers and you get 1 if you’re lucky. Not the same.

> Schooled kids get 8 hours a day with peers As a parent, I have no say over who these “peers” are, how they treat my child, or what BS they try to push on them. As someone who was surrounded by some pretty bad kids during High School I am very comfortable with my children not getting that experience.

Everyone is going to parent their kid their own way but is it even possible to protect your kid from hanging out with "bad kids"? I was fairly sheltered. Religious family, didnt have my own car, had to tell my parents where I was going when I left the house, lived outside of town farish from anywhere else but I still had plenty of opportunities to hang out with bad kids and do bad things. I had my own set of morals and those prevented me from doing anything TOO stupid in high school.

I know a decent number of people who came from homeschooled or religious families who went absolutely wild their first two years of college because they had been so sheltered growing up. This was at a Christian university where you had to live on campus for your first two years, drugs/booze were banned, and you couldnt have people of the opposite sex in your dorm rooms.

TLDR: eventually your kids will interact with "bad kids". What are they going to do then?

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#587

Post by AlwaysRock »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #93
AlwaysRock wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as a counterpoint... I was homeschooled from 2nd grade until sophomore year of high school. I played sports the entire time (was the captain of various teams), had plenty of friends, and was pretty social. Even still, I felt like my social skills were significantly stunted when compared to others my age. It took a long time for me to feel comfortable just hanging out with others because most of my social time wa…

Is it possible that some social traits that influenced your parents to favor home schooling are genetic? Some people feel socially stinted despite attending public school, they just don’t have an obvious scapegoat.

Parents are both incredibly social.

I'm aware that not every kid who goes to a regular school is going to have incredible social skills. Just like how every home school kid isnt going to have poor social skills.

But there is something to being surrounded by peers and having to interact with them day in and day out that you don't get from home schooling.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#588

Post by AlwaysRock »

variadix wrote: post #225
AlwaysRock wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as a counterpoint... I was homeschooled from 2nd grade until sophomore year of high school. I played sports the entire time (was the captain of various teams), had plenty of friends, and was pretty social. Even still, I felt like my social skills were significantly stunted when compared to others my age. It took a long time for me to feel comfortable just hanging out with others because most of my social time wa…

It’s arguable whether public schools provide positive socialization in the first place. I imagine it largely depends on the school, the teachers, the other students, and the individual, but plenty of people come out of public school with poor social skills or (in worse circumstances) anti-social behaviors. It’s not like public school inherently does better at this.

> It’s not like public school inherently does better at this

I don't think this is true. Take those same kids with poor social skills and home school them instead. They almost certainly wont have any better social skills. Meanwhile plenty of kids who did learn strong social skills by being around others in school would have worse social skills if you home schooled them.

I'm not saying regular schools get a 100 out of 100 on this. I'm saying they do a significantly better job at this than homeschooling does EVEN WHEN you add in measures like sports, group activities, ect that op mentioned doing.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#589

Post by AlwaysRock »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #467
watwut wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "your choice to homeschool me harmed me" is point of contention and literally the conflict in some cases.

If your idea of homeschooling is to sequester a child away from all human contact to try and indoctrinate them in some crazy belief, maybe. Plenty of homeschooled kids have homeschool play groups, athletics lessons and other non-compulsory classes which they're free to leave at any time if they don't like their peer group.

"your choice to homeschool me harmed me" doesnt have to mean the social skills alone. I never progressed in some academic areas as much as I would have liked until college/after college because my parents were not great teachers in those areas.

Did they know they were not good teachers in those areas? I'm sure they didnt. Did I know that at the time? Nope. Would public school have taught me that same subject better? Who knows but my peers seemed to generally have a better understand of it than I did.

yada yada road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Re: For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching

#590

Post by cpursley »

dang wrote: post #572
cpursley wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Please don't break the site guidelines like this, regardless of how wrong or provocative another comment is or you feel it is. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

Noted, thanks.
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