A reader writes to say that his five year old came home from public school kindergarten with a flyer alerting parents that the kids are about to have a whole week of "Just Say No to Drugs" education. It shocked him that kids as young as this are being subjected to this sort of thing, and made the reader and his wife consider whether they would be better off getting their kids out of the public school environment, and homeschooling them.
He wrote me asking for homeschooling advice. I told him a couple of things from our experience. First, be realistic. Homeschooling is not for everybody, and it's no panacea. You have to have a certain amount of idealism to get through the tough parts, but understand that there probably will be tough parts. Not everybody is ideally suited to be a teacher, nor are all kids suited to home learning. If you can go into it without illusions, you'll do better.
Second, I said, by far the greater burden of homeschooling will fall on your wife, if you're like most families. As a husband, that means you have to play a crucial support role. If your wife is busy homeschooling, she's not going to be able to cook and clean like she otherwise would. You can step in there by doing this work yourself, hiring a housekeeper to come in once or twice a week, and so forth. Also, you can pick up some of the homeschooling tasks if you can. Furthermore, you'll need to be there to support your wife emotionally when she has a bad day with the kids (and she will). If you think of homeschooling as something your wife does with the kids, it won't succeed.
Those were two things off the top of my head. For you who are now homeschooling, or who once homeschooled but no longer do, what would you advise this reader? Don't chastise or be argumentative here; I mean for this to be a helpful post to him and to all readers who are considering homeschooling, or who might be struggling with it and need some tips.
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I see that many resources have already been mentioned, and though I don't want to burden your reader with heaps of resources (and there are plenty out there!) I would like to add one to the list. The Well-Trained Mind (http://www.welltrainedmind.com/) has forums that address all kinds of homeschooling subjects. They have a particular bend toward classical homeschooling. (And just to be transparent of my background: I work for Classical Academic Press, a company that creates curricula for classical education--whether public, private, or homeschool.)
I wouldn't say this to everyone, but since your reader is thinking of homeschooling primarily because they don't like the moral lessons schools are giving (just say no!), I think it probably applies to him.
It is understandable to want to avoid the socialization problems that public and private institutional schools bring. In part, we began homeschooling for this reason, and it has been very good for that purpose. But, you have to realize that your purpose of parenting (and schooling) is to get your kids out of the house. You can't seclude them until they are adults and then expect them to be able to function in the world.
So, protect them from harmful elements in society, but don't go off the deep end. Take explicit steps to counterbalance that impulse, because part of protecting your kids is to teach them how to deal with bad influences. Get them involved in non-homeschooling groups-community theater, public school sports teams, music lessons, marching bands, whatever. We know several families that think their job is to keep their kids isolated from any bad influences, so they enroll them only in activities that are "homeschool-approved". The result is a group of kids who are so innocent that they can't deal with reality.
I sympathize with your impulse, and it's reasonable, but you have to provide that exposure to bad influences so that you can help them manage it. By allowing it to come in small doses, hopefully your kids will be innocent enough to not be scandalous, but not so innocent that they are always scandalized by reality.
Wow, lots of good advice! Your friend is lucky to be considering this for a kindergartner, because I'm convinced that it's easier to start early than to start later. For a 5 or 6 year old, you can really afford to spend very little time (if any) doing "desk work". SO much learning and scaffolding for future learning can take place in an informal way at that age! Here is my favorite website of ideas for learning with preschoolers and kindergartners: http://www.besthomeschooling.org/articles/lillian_jones_ps_kdgtn.html My children did math as kindergartners and that's it for curriculum work. We tried handwriting with my oldest, but it was like pulling teeth, so I waited a while. Great decision -- when she was more mature, the writing came much easier. Reading might be thrown in there. Personally, I had one who taught herself to read at age 4, and another who was clearly not ready for reading yet at age 5, so I never taught reading to a kindergartner. As someone mentioned, as they get older it takes more time. Dangermom said that by about 3rd grade, you can't do it all before lunch -- this rings true to my experience as well. My 4th grader has a heavier load than ever this year (much more writing for one thing) and she's handling it well. They really do mature into it!
The reading comment brings up an important advantage of homeschooling. My son -- the one who was not ready to read at 5 -- did "How to teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons" (recommended above) at age 6. It was helpful, but he was not a fluent reader at the end of it. Now at age 7, it's finally starting to click. Learning to read has been a long and sometimes frustrating road for him (and me!) He's very bright in other areas, and we don't suspect a learning disability, it's just that not every kids is developmentally ready to read at the magic age of 5 or 6. I remember being in 2nd grade and thinking the children (mostly boys) who struggled with reading must be stupid. They were clearly embarrassed to have to read in front of the class -- it was obvious to them that other children read more easily, and that's not even counting the groans and rolled eyes from brats like me. I'm SO glad that his self-confidence does not have to withstand that. He's not in a bubble; he has a sister who learned to read when she was 4, after all. But when we tell him that all kids learn to read at different ages, he can accept that. At least he doesn't undergo ridicule for his difficulties. There have been many gifts from homeschooling our children, but allowing them to go at their own pace has been one of the greatest. Sometimes that means they go farther and faster than they would in school. Other times it means they go slower. But however fast or slow, they are never "ahead" or "behind" -- they are right where they need to be! I agree with previous posters that some effort should be made to keep kids on par with their peers in case they ever have/want to re-enter school, but I don't think parents should *slavishly* follow school standards. If they are within a year's range on either side, they should be fine if they have to re-enter. Not all kids in school are at the same level either.
I just posted a news story on my blog about a gifted sixteen year old young man who wanted to enter the public high school after being homeschooled and taking college classes at the local community college. The high school refused to accept many of his credits toward graduation forcing him to take classes he had previously taken and mastered. They finally relented on the credits for Japanese in order to fulfill his modern language requirement but nothing else. The family is appealing the board's decision.
The story demonstrates exactly why it is necessary to identify the long term objectives before you decide on HOW to educate and that for the school the real objective was not to learn enough to prove high school competency and move on with your chosen field of study or career, but to learn something from them for their goals and purposes.
This should cause many parents who think that they can homeschool in the early years and then put them in the local high school to rethink that strategy.
You can read more about it at my blog,
http://spunkyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2009/10/homeschooling-and-high-school.html
That's great!
Naturally, what decision is made in this regard is heavily dependent upon the family's financial, academic, ecclesiastical and similar circumstances. However, I'm a huge proponent of homeschooling and I have helped many families get started.
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