Ok I am a little bothered..There seems to be this shift..Parents are really shifting toward homeschooling but?

Question

Alot (not all) have this really unrealistic way they are going about it. Alot of the ways they allow thier children to behave goes completly against the polite rules of society (backtalking, cursing, no homework....and so on)...Again I am not talking about all homeschooled parents or children...I can see very valid reasons why some parents who need to homeschool thier children, and I can see how much work and disipline goes into that comitment...but there are those other parents....Isn't there some sort of training, or certificate that you must have in order to educate your children the way you want...wheather its right or wrong?

Answer 1

[QUOTE]Isn't there some sort of training, or certificate that you must have in order to educate your children the way you want...wheather (sic) its (sic) right or wrong?[/QUOTE]

In a word: 'No'. If one believes parents ought to have some sort of training or certificate before they can educate their own kids, well, one might as well say that adults have to undergo similar mandatory training or certification before society will allow them to become parents.

Legally, parents are entitled to raise their own kids any way they see fit for the simple reason that they are their kids (and not the state's, government's or society's kids). It all comes back to the whole idea of parental responsibility* and who has the ultimate responsibility for a child's upbringing. And once you start eroding that, no matter how well intentioned your aims, it is a very small step to paternalism, collectivism, socialism etcetera, etcetera.

(* And make no mistake, your experiences have heaps more to do with a person's parenting ability rather than anything to do with the educational choices they've made.)

Not to mention that many of the people teaching kids in the more successful independent schools don't have any training or certification either; if society deems it good enough for many kids to be taught by untrained teachers in private schools, on what basis can it justifiably discriminate against the parents of those same kids if they then decide to withdraw them from school and educate them themselves instead?!?  

Still, as far as I go, there is one huge, fundamental problem with the suggestion of any sort of mandatory training for parents be it in educating their own kids or anything else.......

......The oft-heard cry from parents in such circumstances being: 'The government can tell me how to raise my kids when it starts paying for them' and following that comes the inevitable corollary: 'Heh Society, you want the right to tell me how to raise my kids, fine; here you go, you raise them; you take responsibility for them; you pay for them; you provide what they need and what they want; you pick up their mess after them...' and so on and so on ad infinitum.

Trust me, the results of such (often well meant intially) government initiatives is to infantalise the entire community and erode people's ability to take responsibility for themselves, let alone their kids; I can walk around our property and see the consequences of 200+ years of adults being told the state knows better than them when it comes to making decisions about their own lives and the lives of their children...and it ain't pretty. It might seem hard but you've got to let them sink or swim on their own. After all, if parents stuff up with their kids, the consequences'll come back and bite those same parents on the bum sooner or later...AS LONG AS SOCIETY AS A WHOLE DOESN'T STEP IN AND SAVE THEM BY GOING: 'Heh, why don't we weight the system against bad parents and in favour of society as a whole, then we can protect those same bad parents from all and any consequences by making sure all that stuff comes and bites us on the bum instead!'

Anyway your suggestion is all academic to me; our government encourages parents, for good or bad, to educate their kids themselves** because it is often the only viable option available to it.

(**And more besides: without going into the whole story, the powers-that-be in our society have now (finally!) woken up and started stepping back from inflicting albeit well-meant help to struggling parents with the words: 'If kids have to die before parents will get their act together, then so be it'.)

Oh and given the increasing frequency and seriousness of assaults perpetrated on school staff by both kids and the parents of those very same kids, I would hazard a guess that the incidence of poor parenting amongst homeschoolers is, when compared to the school-going community as a whole, pretty much irrelevant both statistically and to this debate as a whole.

BTW I hope you're not confusing 'doing nothing' with 'unschooling', *grin*.

Answer 2

One of my neighbors homeschools her son because he has ADD, and she had to get all kinds of supplies that were approved for homeschooling, so that if he ever goes to a "real" school, all that schooling he got at home will be counted as part of his education.

Some people think homeschooling is keeping their kids from learning things they shouldn't -- like how to think for themselves.

Answer 3

home school is better i think you dont have to worry as much about your children

Answer 4

Well, no, there isn't.  But quite frankly, the problems you see aren't so much a problem with homeschooling, but with parenting.

It's kind of funny how jobs like teaching 30 kids at a time require extensive education, certification, on-the-job training, etc., but anyone with the "proper parts" can give birth to a child.  Once they have that child, they are completely responsible for providing for that child, raising them, teaching and training them, and protecting their welfare.  Problem is, they don't always see it that way.

There are many people who think that it's perfectly ok to hand their child off to a "professional" (a teacher, for example) to not only educate, but actually raise said child.  My parents are teachers, and this is their largest complaint - even above NCLB.  20/30/40 years ago, parents were involved in their children's education.  They kept in contact with their children's teachers, oversaw their schoolwork, and made sure that they had manners and a good work ethic.  Today, I know of parents who don't even know who their child's teacher is.

When that type of parent decides to homeschool, things like backtalking, cursing, and no homework ensue.  (Now realize, many homeschooled children don't have homework per se, since it really isn't necessary in a homeschool environment.  However, I'm assuming you mean actual school work as opposed to after-class homework.)  However, as parents, they have the right to homeschool their children, same as the rest of us.  Unfortunately, they may do as lousy a job of educating their children as they do of parenting them.

This type of family makes up an extremely small percentage of the homeschooling community at large, simply because they eventually see that it really does take a lot of effort.  Homeschooling doesn't just mean handing your kid a computer or a stack of books and expecting to have the rest of the day free.  

And quite frankly, this happens in schools, too.  Many teachers are very good, and many can be categorized as excellent - but there are those who really should never have gone into the field in the first place.  There are those who, while going through things in their personal lives, really don't do a very good job of teaching.  I can remember my senior econ/soc teacher, while he was going through a divorce, lecturing us quite often on the absolute futility of our even getting an education, since there was no hope of us ever making anything of ourselves.  (Good times, good times.)  I can remember our French teacher cussing out the secretary (in French) every day in front of her class for cutting into her class over the PA with announcements.  Both of these people were highly trained and certified to teach high school.

It really goes both ways.  There are excellent teachers, and there are mediocre teachers.  There are excellent parents (homeschooling or non) and there are mediocre parents (homeschooling or non).  Even with training or certification, people can still choose to be lazy, selfish, or, well, mediocre.

JMHO...

Edit - college stats of homeschooled children are, on average, excellent.  They are scouted by colleges all over the country for academics, sports, and arts, and many get full-ride scholarships.  Many even start their degree work while in high school through early or dual enrollment, distance learning, AP, and CLEP.  They are admitted at elite sports universities, Ivy League schools, and pretty much everywhere else.

Answer 5

I'm really quite surprised that you see more poor behavior in homeschooled kids than public schooled kids. Where I live, I see the opposite. The homeschooled kids are overwhelmingly better behaved, and know how to be polite. They tend to do better in groups of people with varying ages too. Now, I won't say that's true of all homeschooled kids, and I do know some well behaved public schooled kids. Just a generalization from my personal observations. I know a lot of kids, from many walks of life and types of education. I don't know anyone who homeschools so they can be the only one who disciplines their children. In fact, a major reason people homeschool is because of the lack of discipline in the public schools.

Answer 6

You definitely don't need a certificate to homeschool.  Some parents do quite well.  Others don't.  

There are not nearly so many here in Canada as in the US.  There are some in our neighbourhood.  One family makes library visits part of their curriculum.  Mom sits and reads while the kids run wild (they are around 9 and 11 years old.)  They play computer games and never open a book.  

I wonder if the intense day and night one on one is just too much for some parents so the very good intentions begin to slide and the parents never really realize how far they have strayed from their original plan.  

I can well understand why people homeschool.  I miss my kids when they go back to school.  I agree with the earlier poster that teaching your children that they are superior because they are homeschooled is telling them outright lies.  I have seen high achieving children in both schools and homeschooling.  The odd thing is a high achieving public school child will usually just tell you they do well in school.   A high achieving homeschooler will immediately tell you that they are 2 or 3 grades above children attending public schools.  

Answer 7

I'm not a home school parent - I've thought about it for one of my children.  But I'm going to defend them here, as I see this equally with home schooled and schooled kids.  I don't see this as a home school problem. Our society has become more self-centered and less polite.  My sisters two kids went to school and were never wrong in her eyes.  The teacher was always wrong. If the teacher made a small mistake, she was in the principal's office.   Her adult son is undirected as a result.  Now, of course there are impolite home schooled kids.  If their parents have instilled a value of superiority in them, they will treat others rudely.  But parents of kids who go to schools do the same thing.  I know, I went to a private college prep high school.  There were lots of parents and kids who thought they were "all that" and above reproach. The only difference was that the school was the last word on dicipline and had the right to expell a student, so it never got as far. If you didn't like it, you could take the tutition money and walk.   If you read what the home school parents write here, there are parents see the school system as wrong for 100% of students and that home school is always superior. If they have that kind of a view, of course their kids will feel that mom and dad are the sole sources of authority and will treat others rudely.  Who else is left? Maybe their pastor, but that's about it.   There are also homeschooling parents who see it as the choice for their child.  Those parents aren't teaching their kids that they are superior because they are home schooled.  I'd bet their kids are less "snotty", because they don't need to justify themselves.  

The problem with statistics here, and I've researched them, is the limited numbers and scope.  Not all homeschool students report test scores or whether they go to college.  I have looked for the percentage of homeschooled students who attend a four year institution after finishing high school and I can't find the statistic.  60 percent of home schooled students go to college.  90 percent of students in honors classes in high school do. That is an amazing statistic, but it isn't logical to compare home schooled students to honors students because not all home schooled students are honor students. And not all high school students take honors classes.  It also doesn't define college.   Does that include community college which is not selective and where many students live at home? If all home schooled students were required to take the same tests and report what they do after finishing school,  the results would be more valid. But I think that requiring homeschooled students to report if they attend university would be an invasion of privacy.  Requiring all students schooled and not to both test would be less invasive. You could gather the information from incomming freshman student records at universities and then compare it to the numbers of kids who are homeschooled, but that number is not exact, again because of reporting.   All I'm really saying is that you need to evaluate the statistics with their limitations in mind.  There is no doubt for me that homeschooling is successful the majority of the time but not in every case. And how do you define success? Because not all students will go on to college, nor should they in my view.

Now just for fun and since I've written too much, I'm going to show you my society is ruder theory.  I'm going to predict that I get four thumbs down, two since I am not part of the homeschool community and I don't believe it is a yes or no choice, and two because I'm not bashing home schooling. Some people just can't accept a give and take of opinion.  Why should they be polite if they have all the answers?