Home School or Regular School?

[kathie_san]

I've read a story before about a family who raised all their children by home schooling. I just find it odd because for me attending a regular school gives a child an opportunity to socialize and interact with different people. I myself attended a regular school and I could say that it helped me know myself more and developed good interpersonal relationship with people.

[EMTDON]

I never understood home schooling. Teachers go to college for this stuff, why not send your kid to school

[M.H.West]

I have home schooled and done the public school. I home schooled my nieces and nephew at the insistence of my parents who had legal custody but I raised them. The homeschool version of education does give your child the one on one attention that they don't always get in school. Children can learn at their own rate without being rushed or slowed down. There are no interferences during study time, such as unruly children or announcements. Those are all good things in the educational sense.
However, I sent my own children to public school. They tend to be more outgoing, self confident and have a lot more common sense. For what homeschool gives you it doesn't teach you to socialize or learn in social environments. My children are just as smart if not smarter because what the public system lacks in education I take care of when they are at home.
So, my hypothesis is that you can get the same results as the homeschool education if you tutor at home a little without losing the social experience.

[FunFunFun1]

I just think that regular school is important. Mostly because you can'l learn socialization without peers. I know they meet all sorts of strange kids, but that is part of life. Even as adults we come across some characters, so its important to be trained on how to deal with situations like that.

[catowoman]

Education should always be a high priority. Parents should weigh the pros and cons in deciding where to put their child. It's not a question of what you can or cannot afford. It's a question of where your child will learn better and grow into a wise guy or a reliable citizen of the world. I'm not home-schooled so I can never recommend this one. But according to what I learned about home schooling, it's good when you want to own your time. In home schooling you are free to choose your curriculum and schedules and students are taught to be independent in their learning choices. But unfortunately, it can't be denied that there's not much social interaction (which is important to a growing child because to live in the world you have to deal with people and socialize around) and it will bore the student to have the same teacher to accompany him in the duration of his studies (now, where's the fun in that) plus of course, one teacher is not at all knowledgeable in all the subjects to be touch.

[Gman]

This is a tough choice, but a choice every parent needs to analyze what is best for them.

I agree that the children need to socialize with their peers to learn social habits and gain enough bad experiences to know the world is full of them, but could this also be achieved by having it done only once or twice a week in a local community for kids? Like church,YMCA or other clubs? Or even watch it on TV on kids programs?

Does exposing them to regular public school really do them any wonders when they grow up and get smarter? In my experience, I just remember some funny expressions and games we played when I was a kid (good memories), but did that help me to tackle high school? I remember I had to start fresh in High School, starting with no friends, and the key social behavior trait that I used to gain new friends was the golden rule: "Treat everyone like you would treat yourself". That is why I am convinced that home schooling can work if the parent can teach the social behavior they had to their children. Unfortunately, if we all did that, the next generation will have fewer parents that were not home schooled. :-) Tough choice, but I think either one is just fine.

[blueeyes]

There are pros and cons to home schooling and here is my take on it. I think the benefits include more personal attention, having complete say about what your child does or doesn’t learn, to name a few. But I also believe that children who are home schooled miss out on a lot of social training. Now I know we all try to teach our children good manners, politeness, respect for our elders, etc but when children are isolated in a teaching environment from other children, how will they learn about simple things, like taking turns, getting along with others (other than family) etc.