For those who homeschool...at what point would you consider enrolling your child in public school?

Question

I'm at a point with my children that I'm needing to make a decision either way. I've got pros and cons on both sides and would like some other opinions to consider.

Answer 1

Take a look at your life circumstances.  If your health takes a nosedive when your husband is gone, are you really sacrificing your health because of homeschooling?  Or is there something you need to be doing to take better care of your health?  Homeschooling your children should not feel like a sacrifice.  If it does, take a step back and reevaluate how you are going about educating your kids.  There are many, many ways to homeschool.  The method you are using may not be the right fit at the moment.

All the best to you and your family.

Answer 2

It depends on your reasons for homeschooling.

Has the situation changed that  would  change  the value of those reasons?

The point that I would put my son into public school would be that he would want to go to public school.  He is 15 and has been homeschooled for 3 years.  

He is more confident in his learning ability since being at home.   He is finally getting to the point that he realizes that learning is not painful.  

So, tell use your motivation for homeschooling and why that motivation has changed and it will help us understand 'where you are coming from' in the question.

Answer 3

My children will not attend public school again.

It depends on why you are homeschooling in the first place.

My youngest needs to because of medical issues.

Once I started researching curriculum, I realized how far behind the public schools are, therefore my children, were.

I am college educated with student loans and was expected to bring income into the household. The decision has not been easy. However, if I had to return to work any time soon, we would adjust our schedules and hire a tutor.

  

We are considering part time attendance at a private school for our son going into seventh grade.

Have you considered doing a co-op with other home school families that have children in the same grades?

Answer 4

I won't place my kids back in public school until the state tells me I have to because of a law change. My son is entering the seventh grade this year and has never been to public school. I went to an informational meeting last week, and our middle school contains 240 students, of those 240, 16 are pregnant, 100 have tried illegal drugs or alcohol, 34 admit to smoking or using tobacco products. There were 22 instances of violence last year including 3 scares of guns on school property, and one rape by a janitor on a 13 year old. Keep in mind these are 11-14 year olds not high schools. And I live in an upscale suburban neighborhood with one of the "best" schools in NW Ohio. Nope nothing would have me send my kids to ps.

Answer 5

I would never send or have sent them to public school.  I had four children.  The youngest is 17.  They all graduated homeschooling and are or did go to college. I wouldn't send my dog to public school let a lone my child.

Answer 6

I have no plans to place my daughter back in public school. Ive homeschooled for 3 yrs now.  The public schools continue to decline.  Many would opt to place their child back in school during their high school years.  The reasoning for this is that they feel they cannot teach the higher level subjects such as chemistry.  There are options to this.  Find a retired teacher in that subject.  Then there's the socialization myth.  The only thing I will say about this is to keep your kids involved in outside classes i.e clsses at the Y, art classes, or any community activity. Teaching our kids is a joy.  Public schools were not always around.  What did they before such came into existence? They taught their kids at home.

Answer 7

Honestly, every summer, I reevaluate.

It depends on your reasons for homeschooling. For me, it began because the schools in our area scored 1's and 2's out of 10 (on www.GreatSchools.net ) and, i figured I could at least do a 5...

My kids are going into 2nd and 5th next year. We are still homeschooling, as my youngest has speech issues, and I will not consider putting her into public school until she is speaking in a manner that she will not be bullied. Home schooled kids are a lot more accepting of her, and will play with her. When we go to the park on weekends, the public schooled kids ignore her. We are looking at about 2 more years with her, at least.

My (soon to be) 5th grader has been expressing an interest in public school, but I am thinking it is because she is used to being socially active, and we moved to a new town this year and were not able to afford the extras until now. So, I promised her that at the end of the summer, if she still felt like she wanted to be public schooled, we would talk about it as a family, and decide then.

My hope is that she will want to be home schooled. If not, we will probably wind up doing a homeschool charter, where she will attend half-days at a charter school, and the rest at home. She has never been to public school, so this is something that seems to be a way to get her into the system without tossing her right in.

Honestly, I always think that at the end of every year I might put her in public school for the next year, but we haven't, yet.

We just think about it during the summer, and decide. If we are still in the same area, I will probably have her go to a charter school for high school, as they have a prom/senior day/dances, etc. (I didn't go to my prom, but we did do Senior Day @ Disneyland, and I enjoyed it.)

My family is plagued with autoimmune problems, so I feel your pain. I am the only one in my immediate family who is not diagnosed with one, but know I probably have one, based on my symptoms.

What I do when I am feeling beat is have a "bare necessities" day. We do phonics, spelling, math, etc. Then, the kids play outside, and I rest. After about an hour, we'll read "living" history or science books, and talk about it. On these days, I see my kids doing more "school" type things... they are out discovering praying mantis pods, beetles, clouds, birds, observing our vegetable garden and squishing pests. They love field guides so they can ID animals in our yard, park or natural areas. My kids read a LOT, on their own, and are naturally curious. My older daughter is constantly reading and writing without my having to tell her to do it. I have to remind myself when I get too strict about school, that they are learning ALL the time, and the best things cannot be learned in a text book.

I tried to be very creative, and do all their homeschooling without workbooks for the first two years... so, now, they work in workbooks for fun. (Maybe my kids are the only weirdos who do this?) They really get excited about workbooks.

I got really burnt out, and have learned that it is okay to get some workbooks. I like "The Complete Book of_____" books. They keep the kids busy, and come in handy when I need a break from being so artsy and creative with homeschooling. (They have math, science, history... Amazon sells them cheap: http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Math... )

Maybe it is the method you are using. When we try to recreate "school at home", my kids are rebelling by day 2, and I am exhausted by day 3... When we get through the basics, and have fun with the rest, we get a lot more done...

Maybe it is because it is summertime. I am burnt out, and will be letting the kids do their summer bridge workbooks, and reading a lot of library books, and spending a lot of time in the community discovering. I hope to be re energized by next school year. :)

Good luck on whatever you decide.

Answer 8

Our parents could never enroll us in public school even if they both went nuts and decided they wanted to (or we went nuts and decided we wanted them to!).

We live a 2-day drive from the closest school so our only possible 'school' option would be to go away to a private boarding school; and there are many reasons why boarding school is not a viable option for my family incl. the fact that going to conventional schools causes *HUGE* problems for kids such as us - they're only ever concerned with what kids growing up, living and working in towns and cities need to be successful in their future, jobs etc. They don't teach pastoral kids, like us, what we need to know in order to survive in our society, culture, world.

If our mum was to find herself struggling with difficulties such as your's, I reckon our parents'd probably just employ a governess to help out.

Not sure what you mean by 'condescending remarks' (you asked people at what point they'd consider public school and they told you, even if that point is 'never' or 'when h**l freezes over'), I posted this before but then deleted it because I thought it sounded presumptuous (?sp) but...I do reckon you're kids'd probably prefer to go to school and have you well, rather than have you struggle on with home-ed and make yourself sick.

Answer 9

Never, unless my child was miserable and begging to go, in which case I would explore options first anyway.

I have seen the curriculum used by our local High School, it is pathetic.  I considered part time enrollment for my teen, but I just couldn't trust the school to adequately teach any of the core subjects, only electives, and even with those found I could do a better job.

I guess the point where I would consider it would be the point where the schools actually started teaching academics again.

Answer 10

I home schooled our daughter for a short time years ago than she decided she really wanted to go back to public school.  My husband thought it was ok to allow her back into the township so she went and her first year back she was in the office more than she was in class.  Now I'm homeschooling our son and plan to keep him at home.

Answer 11

If you need to send them, do it.  Some public schools are okay.  Just research the schools available to you.  It sounds like you need a break.  Try it for one school year and see how it works.  Even if it doesn't work for all of them, at least you will know.  You could keep some home and send some to school.  It would lighten your load.  Talk to your kids and see what they want.  They may want to go.

Good Luck

Answer 12

If I were to ever homeschool my kids (Which I don't plan on).

I would really like them to go to Public or Private High school.

And I would really encourage and like them too.

I just think High school is a pivital point in ones life, and should not be missed out on.

Answer 13

I wouldn't put my kids in public school. The Prussian system was designed to dehumanize people and create drones. Even the best, most involved parents can't beat something Bismarck liked.

Around middle school, I would consider a private school. Around high school, I would let them go to boarding school if they wanted to.

Bear in mind, I'm not coming from a wealthy family and won't be rolling in piles of cash. But, if my kids really wanted something different, I'd find a way to make it work.

Answer 14

If I had hit a point where I just felt I couldn't handle it anymore.

If I had hit a point where I really felt that my kids would be better off all-round at school--although mainly academically.

If the kids were interested in a particular special program that couldn't be accomplished at home (like International Baccalaureate or some other specialized programs available where we live) and they were old enough that the benefits would outweigh the disadvantages.

If my kids were high school age and wanting to go.

If something happened to my dh and I absolutely had to work outside the home.

Answer 15

It really depends on your school.

For mine...never, unless he really wanted to and had his reasons.  However, our schools have a 20-30% dropout rate (on a good year) and are considered the "best" because they take state in football 3 years out of 5.  While my son likes sports, he's highly gifted and dyslexic - he needs a school system that can challenge him while meeting his needs.  Our school district simply can't do that.

Edit - with your new info, I would say that if your health necessitates it (and there are decent schools in your area), it would be something to consider.  Your original question seemed more a "personal opinion" sort of thing, so that's how I answered it :)

With a situation like that, you and your husband need to consider all the pros and cons, and then go with the choice that seems the best.  How often do you move?  How old are your kids?  If you're in one place for at least a school year and your kids are young enough to need adult instruction in a lot of areas, school might be a better choice (at least for a year or so).

However, if you move around a lot, and/or your kids are old enough to be more independent, homeschooling might be the better choice.  Are you able to get curriculum that will teach directly to them (DVD, CD/online)?

For us, the only way I would seriously consider it is if we moved into a different district...ours just has nothing to offer our son (and would likely set him back).  However, that's us.  If you and your husband work it through and determine it to be the better choice, it would be worth a try.

Hope that helps :)

2nd Edit - I hope that what I said didn't come across as condescending; I didn't mean for it to be.  Honestly, I live in a horrid school district and very little could cause me to let my son attend it.

I don't have an auto-immune disease per se, but I do have conditions that cause me to have similar symptoms at times, and several friends (who homeschool) with fibromyalgia.  I do understand.  If it's to the point where you are feeling unable to function, ps may be the better choice.  In my answer above, I wasn't trying to force you toward homeschooling or anything like that, but to bring out questions to consider.  If I felt that keeping my son home would prevent me from being able to meet his needs or be his mother, then yes - I would consider enrolling him in school.  

I'm sorry you're in this situation; I hope your husband is able to return soon, and that things ease up on you.  Whatever you decide, I wish the best to you and your family.

Answer 16

I only have two children - one HS'ed and one (with multiple disabilities) that is in PS.

I have an auto-immune disease - psoriatic arthritis, plus fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, polyarthritis, PCOS, hypertension, & pre-diabetes.  So I'm worn out for you since you have 4 kids, not 2, and your DH is gone for long periods (mine works long hours, but rarely travels).

I know how HORRID flares can be!  I have to take a daily nap or two.  My son just works on independent learning during that time, and I generally nap when DD is at school.

You have to take care of YOU - or you can't take care of your kids.

Why not put them back in PS and see how it goes?  After a long break, you may be refreshed enough to start up HS'ing again.  Or, if your state allows, just slow down on the HS'ing, and do a year-round schedule, taking breaks as needed, or shortening your school day.

I'd be wasted just having double the kids!  As it is, I can barely make it through some days.

If you burnout, then you won't be worth much for your kids - with, or without DS at home.

Is there an option where you live (or in the military system) where your DD's could attend PS part time?  Do you have children under age 5 (Kdg) or preschool age?  Could they attend a local program to give you a break?

I re-evaluate our children's educational placement each year.  It's just something that needs to be done.  In hindsight, after our big move 2 years ago, I should have put my DS in PS for second semester (we moved Jan 6th).  The move was soooo stressful, and it's when the PsA, fibro, and hypertension kicked in.  It was just toooo much stress.

When your DH is home, do you get plenty of Mom Time?  It is CRITICAL!!!  If not, you need to carve out time each day, and at least one long period, each week.  You need time to recharge and regroup, and do something just for you - nap, read, get a massage, lock yourself in the bathroom in a nice long soak- you name it!!!!

Hang in there!  Only *you* can make this decision, and do NOT feel guilty or second-guess yourself.  You can *always* change later - whether you decide to continue HS'ing, or whether you decide to do PS for awhile.  Only commit to one year (or even one semester) at a time.

I also liked the suggestin to use a curriculum that's easier on you - or one that you can teach all the kids with for the most part.

Hang in there!

Off to nap...

PS - EDITED TO ADD: - Oh, I want to apologize for the condescending attitudes you rec'd.  It gets my goat when some people are so "rabid" about HS'ing.  We do what's best for each child - and I know other parents do, too.

Other people, my DH included, do not understand the PAIN and FATIGUE of auto-immune diseases.  I try to remind them that basically my body is eating itself!!!  ;-)  I'm on 14 Rx meds that s***w w/ my mind, but I can't do w/o them.  I also have to have frequent cortisone injections, which are painful in and of themselves.  So here's a {{hug}}!  Don't let the turkeys get you down.  That's why I said DO NOT FEEL GUILTY - do what is best for you and your family!!!!!