WHY I *USE TO* Homeschool

Several people have asked me, “Why do you homeschool?” And there’s no ONE easy answer. There are several reasons I homeschooled my oldest son that are a bit different than the reasons I am homeschooling my two younger kids.

Let start back with my 25 year old son. He was ADHD from the time he was a toddler and when he started school, RIGHT AWAY the teachers brought it to my attention that there was a problem. SO I took him to the doctor, had him evaluated, and subsequently put on Ritalin. The drug made a significant difference in him and after that he prospered in school and had no further issues. UNTIL he was about 12 years old and he decided he didn’t want to take ADHD medicine anymore. He said he ‘didn’t like how it made him feel.’ I didn’t want to force my child to take medicine he didn’t want to be on, but I also knew he wouldn’t do very well in a structured environment without the medicine. But I let him try to be meds free. Almost immediately the teacher noticed a difference in him and asked me what was the change. I explained to her that we were going meds free for now and would wait and see how well that worked out. It didn’t. His grades started dropping. His disruptions of the class became a problem and I knew we were going to have to do something different. He just couldn’t sit still. I started thinking about homeschool. Then one day he came home from school and told me about a school raid where they checked every student’s locker and they had found a loaded 9mm handgun inside a 7th grader’s locker. That was all it took for me to totally make up my mind that I didn’t want my son in that environment anymore. We were about to pack up and move away from Texas to Mississippi anyway and be in a new environment with schools that ranked at almost the bottom of the scale Nationally/academically. So I started homeschooling him. I homeschooled him from 7th grade to the 12th grade.

Fast forward some years and I have 2 younger kids who are almost school aged. I had decided I would either put them in private school or homeschool them. A girl my ex husband worked with said she had her daughter in a small private Christian school and that they had very low student/teacher ratio and it was an amazing school (they used Abeka curriculum). I checked it out, saw we could afford it, and let the kids start school. My DS was in K4 and DD was in K5. They did very well in the school, made a lot of friends and loved their teachers.

When the kids were in 1st grade DS and 2nd grade DD they had a meeting with me to let me know that DS was gifted and DD needed extra help. They didn’t have a gifted program nor did they have the resources for extra help with my DD. I would just have to let my son be bored and not challenged and hire a private tutor to get my DD up to par. Neither of those things seemed like a good plan. That was at the end of the school year. I was still undecided on what I was going to do so I went ahead and enrolled them in the private school for the next year, but was still thinking about homeschool. Right before the beginning of the next school year we all found out that the private school our kids were in was going to be closing. Bad finances/not enough students to keep it going. SO I had to hurry up and slap my kids in our local public school. I started working on my ex husband right away about homeschooling the kids. I couldn’t do it without his ok because we are divorced and have joint custody. AT first he said no. But after just a short time in public school here, immediately my son started getting picked on, almost daily. And I’m not talking about some kid calling him names or taunting him, I am talking about punching him in the side of his head, punching him in his back, two boys ganging up on him and jumping him in the bathroom and the final straw was a boy pee’d on my son in the bathroom. All of this had built up and built up over just a 3 month period that they were in public school. I told my ex husband that I would NOT let my children be subjected to this kind of treatment any longer, period. That we were going to be homeschooling and he would just have to get over himself.

I do not homeschool for religious reasons. I am not Christian. I do not go to church. I am the minority. Most homeschoolers are Christian.

I have been homeschooling these 2 for a few years now. I have bumped my son up a grade and he is doing great/being challenged and I am being able to give my daughter the extra help she needs. She never really needed my help; she just needed time to become a better reader. Once she came into her own as a strong reader, all the rest of it was easier for her. She still has trouble pronouncing big or unfamiliar words, but other than that she does well with her curriculum.

So, the main reason I can give you for why I homeschool my kids now is so they get the proper education they deserve and are not subjected to the violence and hatefulness of other children. We choose who we want our kids to be around and we aren’t forcing them to be in an environment that is detrimental to them.

I know for some families they have no choice but to leave their kids in public school because they have to work, or they can’t afford private school. And for that I feel very fortunate to be able to do this for/with my kids.

My daughter said she would like to try going to regular school in a few years, but I haven’t decided if I will let her or not. There is another private school in town I could send them to but I haven’t heard any good things about it. And public school is out of the question. SO I will decide what to do about that later on down the road.

DS prefers homeschool. He likes not having to get up early, being able to watch TV on his lunch break, and never having homework. Our school days only last a few hours compared to ALL DAY in regular school and we get to do fun Science experiments and cool art projects/crafts.

So, there you go. That’s why I homeschooled years ago, and why I homeschool now. Different kids, different reasons.