s/o Homeschooling thread-Did your child(ren) like it?

My husband was homeschooled and he loved it. It afforded him many opportunities he wouldn't have had otherwise. He traveled all over the US as a teenager, in a band, made two records, etc.

He's the most self-motivated person I have ever met. A traditional school setting would have reigned him in far too much.

She LOVED it! Never wanted to go back to a traditional school setting. We offered that on a regular basis and, well, I admit I used traditional school as a threat whenever there were issues. She loved going to school as well, but she loved the flexibility of homeschooling even more. It did so many things for her. It gave her unparalleled academic freedom that is not easy to find in a traditional school setting. How many dance obsessed kids get to study dance history in depth in high school (granted, what she ended up learning is equal to or more in depth than her friends who have taken similar courses at the college level)? She was able to take a full year for a course that she found vexing (AP Chem) and move quickly through courses that she found to be rather simple but necessary (did a year's worth of pre-calc in about a month). Homeschooling separated learning from socializing, which is something she was happy about. She was able to spend her academic learning time concentrating JUST on her academics without distraction. She was also no longer forced to be with just kids her own
age. Her social group grew to include people of a much wider age range.

Overall, it was a great fit for our little family. What I would have done differently is that I would have relied less on online schools. I was nervous in the beginning and found it all overwhelming. Dd said that very first year that felt that I could have taught anything in the online courses better. She's probably right, though my teaching methods are not like most. I am a firm believer in the Socratic method and I am probably an unschooler at heart.

I know a family that did.  The dad remarried and decided step mom could homeschool the children.  The older daughter hated it and asked many times if she could go back to her old school and they would not let her.  I believe they did a good job with her schooling, so that was not an issue.  She is just a very social person and she missed that even though the parents still planned many social activities for her.  I think she missed the day to day, between class time with her friends.  She would have done fine in either setting.  

Her younger sister did not mind homeschooling.  I believe she did better at home because she has some minor special needs the family will not admit to.  Step Mom did a great job making the curriculum suit her and her learning style, not something all schools can do.  

So there are people that homeschool their children even if the children make it clear they do not want to be.

My kid goes to traditional school (K) and she tells me daily how much she hates it, so I'm pretty sure she would love to be homeschooled.   I've considered it, but DH put in a firm NO vote on that thought. She's an only child and he wanted her to have the social experience of school.

Personally, I would have loved being homeschooled. Academically I was usually at the top of my class. I was also the littlest kid in my class all through (Catholic) grade school and always got picked on for all kinds of stuff so I would have very happily skipped all of that if I could have. By the time I hit middle school and high school (public), I was okay with being in traditional schools but I mostly just wanted to keep my head down and get it over with.

My son loved it. He has severe ADHD. For him it was the perfect solution because I was able to tailor the lessons to suit his learning style-the way he learned best which was hands on learning vs. sitting at a desk in a classroom reading a textbook and keeping pace with 30 other kids. He was bored out of his mind in a traditional school setting and hated school.

I homeschooled him from grades 6-12. We did a ton of field trips at the beginning because I wanted to bring that love of learning back to him, and it worked. Luckily we live in Annapolis, MD. so we are halfway between Washington DC and halfway between Baltimore, MD. They are each 45 minutes in either direction. So we had a LOT of museums that we could go to for history lessons, science lessons, art lessons and so on and we took advantage of it. Noting like going to see the real thing when you have a lesson on art history!

One time I took him to the National Gallery of Art (the Smithsonian) in Washington DC and asked him to pick out 5 of his favorite paintings and 5 he hated (to make it fun), and then we picked out postcards of them in the gift shop, then I took him over to the East Gallery (the modern wing) and had him do the same thing. When we got home the next day I had him write a paper explaining why for each and he used the postcards as samples of each in the paper. He had a great time expressing his ideas of why he hated the art in the modern side of the gallery. He has a wicked sense of humor and like I said we were using www.oakmeadow.com so all of his papers were sent to a teacher with that curriculum (you can hire one at an extra cost) and he loved getting her comments back. 

This was just one example. DS loved his homeschooling experience. I often wished I'd homeschooled from K-12, but it wasn't until grades 6-12 that I really was forced to make the decision. From my experience and if I had to do it over again I would certainly have done it for K-12. I am a born teacher though and in college was a early education major for 3 years until I discovered photography. But I don't think that has anything to do with it, and teaching an ADHD child has it's own challenges. 

Debbie in MD.