Homeschooling experiences with older children? Pre-teens?

Question

Does anyone has have the experience of homeschooling pre-teens (11-13 years old) for the first time?

A child that went to school from preschool to seventh grade and then leaves?

How is that experience? (How hard, what challenges are there) and What suggestions do you have?

Answer 1

I know many people who homeschool - sometimes for children that previously attended a public school.

They still need that social aspect to keep developing interpersonal skills - for many children, this can include community sports or church/other organizational groups.

Another big challenge is to make sure they are within the curriculum appropriate to their grade AND their ability. Some home-school programs have evaluations to help with this.

A good resource is: http://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/ although, of course, you may be a home-school dad. :-)

Answer 2

We started middle school homeschooling for the first time.

I think it helped that we had always been very involved parents but that first year was so tough.

Not so much different than earlier age starts from what I hear from others.

We over did it. We were over structured. We got burned out.

Our son went private through third, public through the rest of elementary and then we started homeschooling.

Our son has experienced what any kid experiences when going to a new school (bricks or otherwise) - he is the new kid on the block.

The difference from our experience is that homeschool kids are so much more accepting of newbies.  Even though our son is relatively new - he does not feel left out.

Suggestions?

Relax a little... make sure yours get involved.

We are in the high school years now and I find that I work pretty hard as "guidance counselor" more than teacher now.

***UPDATE: Ladycat - thanks for remembering the dads!  ;-)

Answer 3

It can be done!   My oldest was going into grade 5 when we decided to homeschool.   Because the kids weren't sure what it was all about we decided to try it for a year before we made a final decision.

It took us a few months to get the kids out of "school mode".  I heard "the teacher didn't do it this way"  way too many times those first few months.  I thought I would go crazy!  

After the first year we realized that most of the curriculum we used was actually wrong for the kids learning styles but the kids still enjoyed themselves enough that when we discussed out next year none of them wanted to go back to school.

We've now been hs'ing for almost 5 years and still enjoy it.  The trick is to get involved in hs activities, community projects, etc.  Find the curriculum that fits your kids and stick to it.

Answer 4

It is much, much harder to begin homeschooling a child of that age. They have already developed peer-dependency.  They have difficulty entertaining themselves or being self motivated. It is difficult.

I homeschooled all my children over the last 17+ years. I even have adult children out of college who were homeschooled. I believe in homeschooling.  But I really don't know if I would ever suggest that someone start homeschooling a 13yo who has always been in public school unless that child was very independent. The struggles and relationship issues that come with those circumstances are huge.  I have seen it many times in families.

Answer 5

My son will be thirteen next week. We pulled him from school nearly three years ago, so near the end of fourth grade.

It was different, that's for sure. At that point, he had been so programmed that it was difficult for him to be independent in how he learned. We spent nearly 18 months deschooling, basically allowing him to figure out who he was, what his interests truly were, and to find what he wanted to know.

Now it's amazing. He's barely a teen, so he does have problems with independent organization, keeping track of his goals, and we help him with that. But he just spent a few hours researching HOW to get what he wants in college, and got books for chemistry, biology, Spanish, and is reworking his entire algebra book to make sure that he understands it all. He's also learning C++ and visual basics, because he wants to go into programming and software development.

All this from a kid, who has autism and the school could NOT understand how he could be sooo smart and have so much trouble with getting work done, paying attention in class, and was failing. He's doing MUCH better with that, with just someone helping him out at home.

Answer 6

I've been home schooled my whole life (I'm 17)- but I've had friends who have been in the situation that you are talking about.

Mainly, keep your kids involved socially- art classes/drama classes/sports/homeschooling groups/etc. there is a ton of stuff out there and it keeps us kids from going stir crazy :D Not only that but if you continue homeschooling through high school this is the kind of thing that gets a homeschooling into college.

Make sure you keep detailed transcripts of the school work/personal projects your child does. My family moved recently and lost a year of my high school transcripts and I can't tell you how many problems it's been causing (Lol).

A big thing to consider is what your child wants. If he/she is against going into homeschooling it will be fairly hard for he/she to overcome that enough to want to learn.

As far as the down sides go; don't be surprised if your child wants to focus on the topics he/she prefers and totally ignore and reject others.

Using myself as an example, as a kid I loved to read and was reading at the college level by the time I was ten. BUT I hated math. Last year I was pretty much a third grader as far as math goes. Once I realized I was in trouble I was able to fix it, but not without basically killing myself to do so.

I would suggest that you envolve your child in the selection of curriculum and electives. The more they are envolved, the more fun the proscess is for them, the more they want to work for it.

A big part of the reason why homeschooling works is because of the personal impowerment it gives the student.

I've got 3 younger siblings in my family and we all use different curriculum based on what works best for us personally. I use a computer based curriculum called Switched On Schoolhouse (being the geek of the family) and educational DVDs, one of my sisters uses a full standardized christian coarse called LifePac; another uses a collection of varying works including books, dvds, computer programs, and one on one work with my mom...

I hope I've helped at least a little :D

And I hope whatever you decide works out for the best.

Answer 7

I've known some families who've pulled kids out at that age. The experience has depended entirely on the child and how attached they were to the school way of life. One girl I know was so grateful to be homeschooled and on the other end, is one girl I met who found it embarrassing.

Get yourself a good support group would be my first suggestion. A good support group (or a few!) is invaluable. A place to celebrate, a place to ask questions, a place to rant when things go bad. :)

Then, make sure your relationship with your child gets built up, especially if it was suffering a lot when the child was in school. A poor relationship will make homeschooling miserable.