For People Who Do Home-Schooling; How Long Does It Last?

Question

I know that for each family it is different but I wanted to know what the majority case for students that are home-schooled.

Are more students:

a) home-schooled their entire life and have never set foot in the school system at all?

b) enter school and for some reason or another later on decide to be home-schooled?

c) only home-schooled for a certain period of time and may enter a school (such as high school or college) later on?

Answer 1

No only is each family different, but each family member is different. My oldest son thrived in public school, so I let him remain in that setting. He went on to college after graduating and is a well-rounded individual with good ethics and knowledge. My second son went to public school until he reached high school. He did not settle into public school well and had learning difficulties. He did very well at home and was able to apply himself and found things that were very interesting to him; even math! He is currently in college and is looking forward to a career in the medical field. My youngest went to public school for a couple of years, but when the homework was more that the school time work, we decided to bring her home to learn. We were fortunate to find a large group of home schoolers in our area and got together every Friday to hold enrichment classes. These gave our kids peers and new areas of study that they could choose from and some of those helped my daughter to become a strong speaker, an actress, and writer. She is currently enrolled in the Disney College program and does some on line college while away from home.

Answer 2

For each family, it is different and each scenario you have listed is common.

I began homeschooling my second grade son shortly after he began first grade.  He had already attended two years of public school pre-K, one week at a public magnet school, and seven weeks at a public virtual charter school.  I love homeschooling and would never allow my child to attend a public school again.  However, I have not totally ruled out a private Christian school for the future.

There is no majority case; you will find homeschooled students that fall into the categories you listed.

I hope this is helpful

Answer 3

I can only answer for my family-my children are 10 and 7 years old (I also have a 6 month old infant), and they have always been homeschooled.  We anticipate homeschooling them until they are ready for college.

Answer 4

All of the above.

In my family for example, I home-schooled completely through from K-12.

My oldest sister went to school from k-gr4 and home-schooled from grade 5 until graduation. My older brother went to school from k-gr.2 and home-schooled from grade 3-10 and then completed high school in a public school.

My younger brother home-schooled from k-gr.10 and completed high school in the public system.



Nearly all of us went on to complete further education. I'm currently a 4th year university student in Elementary Education, my oldest brother is an engineer and my younger brother manages a framing company, as a Journeyman framer.  

So yes, it really depends on the individual and the circumstances.

Answer 5

That depends on the family. We had 2 of our kids in public school and pulled them out. When our kids were pulled it was because nothing was done about kids beating on our kids and my husband and I decided that we could do better for them. The oldest (2nd grade at the time) was coming home with 4 hours of homework every night. Why was I sending her to school if I had to do 99% of her education at home any way. What was the point?

Why was I sending a 4 yo who needed  speech to a public school when they weren't going to evaluate him for ST until the second semester? I had him in speech with in a month of finding out that they weren't going to do anything about it. Why send a him to pre k when the teacher wanted him drugged because he's a busy boy? She had him pegged as ADHD from day 1.  He had just turned 4 not a week earlier. I have a special boy he's not mentally disabled just a little immature for his age. He has the attention span of a child about a year younger than he is. Why? We think it may be a side effect of 10 days on ECMO. He has medical problems the teacher didn't want to deal with. In the one semester he was there I ended up having to get him a rescue inhaler because he was having an Asmara attack at least once a week in school. Since I've pulled him out he's had 1 attack almost a year ago. Why was I sending him? It was obviously not good for his health.

  

My sister had her oldest in private school before she started to home school. She wanted what was best for him and had no problem paying for it . She wanted all of her kids to go there but the school closed and she ended up moving to another area. After the school closed they made a decision to home school their 5 kids. Her oldest was placed in a public school after hurricane Katrina hit us and after his grades took a huge dive (he was bored stiff with PS 7th grade) he was pulled again. Now he is home schooled and loving it.

For both our families home school will last until they graduate. Our youngest kids will probably never see the inside of a public school. My sisters 4 youngest kids have never been enrolled (her youngest started Kindergarten this year).

Answer 6

I don't know if the people I know are reflective of what typically happens, and I don't know if there are any stats out there that show accurate information. In any case, where I live, with the people I know, I'd say a good 75% (maybe even more) of the homeschooling families actually started out with their kids in school. I'm one of the "oddballs" because I've done it from the beginning. It's not the kids deciding to be homeschooled though; it's problems with the schools that aren't getting resolved and the parents finally say "enough" and pull their kids.

A growing number of homeschooled kids where I live are NOT going to high school. About 10 years ago, it was still very common for many high school homeschoolers to switch to school. Now, I'd say it's more common for them to finish high school at home. Many still go onto some sort of post-secondary, although some find their own niche before they're even done high school and don't need post-secondary. Often, once the kids have graduated, the families leave the homeschooling groups so we don't always know what their kids are doing afterwards.

Answer 7

I am not personally homeschooled, but i have tons of friends who are.

One of my friends has been home-schooled since he started school. He is currently 17 years old and a Junior in highschool. He will only enter another school when he goes on to college. Personally i think it will be a social shock. Unless he decides to get an online degree.(which i highly doubt)

I go to a private school, in which one of my friends was home-schooled from the time she was able to go to school. She started her freshmen year in highschool fresh out of coming from homeschooling.

Only reason she was home-schooled was because her older had a bad experience with a public school. (she has 6 other siblings). All 6 have been home-schooled. She is the first to go back into a school (private) in the family since her sister's bad experience.

So like you said..different experiences..

With me..been in a school my whole life. Good, bad, horrible experiences..still in a school system. Both work, just depends on the child.

Leelah

Answer 8

My son attended pre-k and three weeks of K before I withdrew him from school. He will be free to go back to public school if he ever wants to, but I fully intend to continue homeschooling for as long as I can.

Answer 9

parents ussually start their kids off homeschooling from the get go, they may go to highschool, but normally don't go to regular school until college.  One reason is that many kids can graduate early through homeschooling as it can be taught year round.  If a parent doesn't like the educational system in the area, they probably aren't going to change their minds come highschool.

Answer 10

Well,  for me  I've been homeschooled all my life so far, but I'm planning on going to  a community college  so I can decide what I want to do.

I know another homeschooled family who has many kids and only the oldest has been in school (except it was  kindergarden and he was pulled out and homeschooled)  This family seems to be  strong in their belief to continue to homeschool all of their kids.

I also know someone else who did go to school but is homeschooled now  ( and she is in high school )

So i guess the situation changes from family to family like you said before.

Answer 11

I have no idea if statistics exist for this, if so I'm sure someone will post them.  Our family falls into category #1 - never stepped foot into school for schooling (we go all the time for sporting events and science nights, plays and stuff like that :)

Being homeschooled their entire lives will not preclude them from college, FYI :)

Answer 12

Planning on A here. I don't know how you'd find out what the majority really is.

Answer 13

I went to public school from preschool through middle school and I began homeschooling in 9th grade. I sometimes wonder what it woul dhave been like if I started sooner though.

Answer 14

for me the answer is: C

Answer 15

My answer is "C"  We have home-schooled for a certain period of time, on and off, and the children will be attending college away from home at some point.

Answer 16

Hi,

First of all, the length of home schooling depends and varies in each family. My family has been involved with teaching our children since 1985. We started as result of our church's private school started one year later than our daughter's kindergarten entrance date. We figured we could do teach at home at that level and entered the world of home schooling.

We did send her to the school the next year. For various sorted reasons, we reconsidered our options for her 2nd grade education and decided to return to home schooling. She never went back to 'school' afterwards and is a college graduate and working as a nurse.

Our first son, who has ADHD, was home schooled from the beginning and entered public school at 2 different times. First, he spent a half year as a fifth grader to see if he could function in an institutional setting and do well. He excelled and decided not to go back since he learned so much more at home. He has assurance that he could fit in a formal setting and still function despite his need to 'twitch' as he called his ADHD tendancies. He latered finished his last two years in a public high school and finished 11th in his class and a member of the National Honor Society. He is now working as a firefighter and will be shortly participating in paramedical level in Emergency Services training for Bangor Fire Department.

Our youngest son, is finishing up his junior year this summer. He has never been taught in a public or private schools. He works part time, and spends quite a bit of his spare time training and conditioning as a wrestler and coaching middle school age and younger wrestlers. He has no intention in going to 'experience' public school other than to compete in sports.

So you see, there is no set way to get the job done. The importance part to remember is that you do what is best for your family and to be actively involved. We have had a great adventure and a wonderful God directed ride in educationing our children. Through the unknowns, doubts, and rewards, we continue to grow and learn as much today as we did when we first started.

As to the question about today's tendencies, I get more calls for information from high schoolers who are researching home schooling choices for themselves. They want to help their parents become informed and decide to allow them to be home schooled.  It used to be parents of elementary children calling for direction and information and a slow change through the upper grades in the later years. Now, I believe, you will find there is an even amount of children being homeschooled in all grades. Definitely, the proportions have balanced out from the early days of more younger population and very few upper grade students.

There are definitely more opportunities and ways to educate at home than ever before! Now that is wonderful!

Donna

Answer 17

I can only tell you what we do. Anything I guess at might be a mistake.

We usually school for about 6 hours a day. However, that includes alot of physical activity, several short breaks, art, life skills, journaling, a healthy lunch, educational video and computer time, etc. When we feel we've not made the academic progress we could have during the week, we will work on lessons over the weekend. Some days my daughter gets up at 7 and sometimes she gets up at 9.

My daughter began in public school and came home in the third grade. I do not know what career path she will choose after she graduated from homeschool, but I do hope she chooses to go to college or trade school.

Answer 18

About as long as most schooles.