Ask Lemmy

I briefly dated a girl who was homeschooled. She was a very nice girl, but holy fuck was she awkward in social settings. So many references that people our age should get would go right over her head. She was also from a well off family so when she didn't get these things, she kind of made it out to be like a class issue. "Oh that's from a rap song is it? We were never big on rap in our household." Well, we're you living under a rock? You don't know to the window, to the wall?

I will give her parents credit. She was very well read and learned to play a lot of instruments. She was very knowledgeable of the arts, but anything pop culture related was clearly a no go in her childhood/ young adulthood, and it made her quite dull.

Her brother was also fucking creepy man. I got real serial killer vibes from him. They were socially very similar, and I'm pretty sure the brother was closeted and gay. I had just assumed that he was out by the way he spoke, and acted, then one day she said something about how he needs a girlfriend. I said something along the lines of "are you sure he's looking for one?" And she got super offended and said she doesn't know why everyone thinks her brother is gay, and that men always hit on him which he supposedly hated. That could also just have been a lack of socialization and picking up on societal norms? Maybe he actually was straight, idk but he acted and looked very much the part. All in all the vibe was super off with them.

I think kids need to socialize to develop correctly. That girl, her brother and the handful of other homeschooled people I've met in life very much have reinforced that belief. I especially am worried about this current crop of anti vax types with little to no critical thinking skills home schooling their children. The HBO documentary - "This Place Rules" covered this briefly, and I worry for those children. I have a friend who has similar fringe beliefs and has talked about homeschooling his kids. I hope for that kids' sake they actually send him to school because if not, he'll be sounding like the kids in the video below.

https://youtu.be/Hdk3a9pI_jA

Unless you’re an expert on child development and education, then you’re not qualified.

I have neighbours homeschooling their kids, that ate similarly aged to mine. Sometimes we see them at the school playground on the weekend. The kids seem fine, the parents seem normal. They mentioned they take the kids to a weekly home school kids play date, and there is some sort of education resource worker that makes sure the kids are learning what they need to.

My toddler is thriving in pre-school. We can't teach her how to be independent and socialise with other kids at home.

I can see a life situation where we would homeschool for a limited time. I'd expect both teaching parent and kid to do standardised testing to make sure the education is up to the national curriculum.

Home schooling should be be an excuse to not school, which it seems to be in some parts of the world.

Every homeschooled person I've met has lacked all tact but YMMV. I haven't met anyone that was homschooled after leaving university so no clue if that improves over time.

I think it's a big mistake, but don't think 'the law' should get involved, either.

Include meals, that's a good incentive and will help a lot of kids that are fed total garbage at home.

if we can't feed children what are we even doing?

Big part of school is training on how to be socialized into society. Interact with people who are different than you. Homeschooling provides none of that.

The majority that defend homeschooling do so on pure ideological grounds. They accuse schools of indoctrinating kids, but they want to personally ensure their kids are indoctrinated the way they (the parents) deem correct. "Sex is evil! Women should submit to men! is pure evil! Never question me!" - these parents should NEVER homeschool their kids.

There are very few situations where homeschooling would be better for the kid over traditional schooling, and those situations are usually remedied with the school getting its shit together and being at least decent.

The school can't always get better though and can even be harmful to kids, due to bad teachers, bad staff, bad classmates or general precarious conditions, especially if the kid has any sort of special need (autism, down's syndrome, etc). Changing schools isn't always an option, whether due to distance or cost of moving back and forth every day, and that's usually when homeschooling should be done.

I was "homeschooled", along with my many siblings, by Southern Baptist parents. I couldn't really read until I was 9, and my younger siblings until even later. My older siblings had it marginally better, but not by much.

I was horrendously under-socialiazed, and I still struggle with debilitating social anxiety to this day. Although I should emphasize that a couple of my siblings are very socially competent and relatively well-adjusted, so I'm not sure how much of my issues in that domain are nature vs. nurture.

It always made me feel awful and dumb to hear peers at church talking about school-related things and what subjects they were learning, because I had no idea what they were talking about, which exacerbated my social difficulties. In my teenage years I started to understand what was happening, and I practically had to beg my mother for any kind of instructional material. I taught myself algebra with the help of internet friends. I still distinctly recall how utterly unscientific and creationist-bent was a biology textbook I got; it was so bad that even I was questioning it at the time.

My younger siblings were eventually allowed to participate in a homeschooling "coop" after my younger brother begged for something. Homeschool coops involve homeschool families getting together to have some semi-structured classes, usually something like once a week. Said brother took a "psychology" class there, the textbook for which was written by a guy with a business or economics degree and no background in psychology, and it said mental illness was the result of sin.

Home schooling in my state is ridiculously under-regulated. All you have to do is be registered with a private school as homeschooling and submit transcripts that comply with the state education requirements. That's literally it. My mother fabricated them - the records say I took Spanish in high school, but I couldn't have told you much beyond "hola".

I went to college with what was essentially a fake high school diploma. I languished in my 20's. I got a master's degree in my 30's, but I was lucky and happened to be gifted when it came to academia; most homeschool kids aren't so fortunate. Most of my siblings have not managed to actualize their potential. I myself could have been doing much more much earlier if I hadn't gotten a woman pregnant during college because I'd never had anyone tell me to use a condom. In retrospect, my parents' duress at learning that I was having a child out of wedlock is almost comical for having been essentially self-induced.

I don't know if homeschooling should be banned outright (as I'm aware of select cases where some parents weren't neglectful and it was actually a better option for some kids due to various circumstances), but something needs to change. At a minimum, I think homeschoolers should be required to do the same state standardized testing as required in public schools in order to ensure they're not being outright neglected like I and my siblings were.

My child is attending public school, which has had it's own set of issues (bullying and a shocking amount of violence, for starters), but it's a marvel to me the gap between what she knows and what I knew at her age. She's learning things that I still haven't. She's better off for it.

Tl;Dr: don't homeschool, do improve public school.

Actually not too bad. I wasn't fully homeschooled, however, my old man augmented what school was teaching me. Basically he taught me mathematics, reading and writing. It kept me well ahead of my class. I had a good handle on fractions and so on at about grade two.

Then again, my old man was a physicist with a PhD.

It is illegal here, parents are required to send their children to school for a minimum of nine years.

This is to protect the interests of the child, Sweden has several laws that are focused on the child's rights over the parent's authority.

I have read arguments from people in the US who homeschool their kids about how it is the parent's right to manage their children's education.

But to me that just seems wrong, in Sweden children have the right to a high quality education that follows a proper plan and is done by professional teachers, it is the duty of the parents to make sure the children attends their education.

Homeschooling means that the government can't verify that the education the children receive is up to standards set by the department of education.

Just about all education in Sweden is free to Swedes and EU citizens, so there is zero financial reason to do homeschooling over regular schooling here.

Former homeschooled kid here. Everything I'm about to say is personal experience but I've known many other homeschooled people throughout my life.

With homeschooling you get out what you put in. If the parents take the time to really dial in to the child's learning needs and set up adequate socialization through after school activities or meetups with other homeschoolers I truly believe it is one of if not the best option for raising a child.

That being said, most of the people choosing to homeschool are not doing it to give their kids the best. Many are narcissistic conservatives who deny modern science and homeschool not to teach the child but to indoctrinate. They don't consider mental health important. They don't consider friends important. They consider the kid learning the Bible and toughening up important. The parents are often social outcasts themselves because of their more strict beliefs.

Homeschooling is not a problem and doesn't result in anything directly, it's the people choosing to homeschool not being equipped to do it properly. In my experience the kind of parent who would choose homeschooling is likely to produce a social awkward kid even if they don't homeschool.

TL:DR - Homeschooling good. Most everyone who chooses homeschooling bad. Hug your kids.

The absolute back-breaker of the US educational system. They keep kids out of school to indoctrinate them by completly incompetent people instead of giving them a proper, universal education and the ability to come in regular contact with kids of their age outside the normal circles.

That does not mean that the US school system is the ultimate solution, on the contrary. But it would be much more important to fix that than to allow any yokel to brainwash their kids at home into a next generation undereducated and narrowminded person.

I saw this question asked before and my answer is still the same. I have never met a homeschooled person who wasn't a fucking idiot. Do with that what you will.

I think home schooling (and private schools) should be illegal. Everyone's kids should have to go through the same public education system. No exceptions. Public schools could use an influx of cash, and there are definitely edge cases that they don't handle well currently. We should advocate for making them better rather than finding an alternative.

It took me years to overcome getting homeschooled for my first two years of high school. Learning how to socialize and deal with other people is an essential skill for the rest of your life and arguably more important than anything else they teach you - you can catch up on academics relatively quickly but nothing can replace daily interactions with your peers over multiple years. Everything important requires at least a little social skill - jobs, relationships, friends, peer networks

It's fine.

Homeschooling or not isn't the issue. Plenty of kids who do go to school have a horrible education. I have known some perfect wonderful home schooled people, and some total weirdo religion nut job home schooled people.

The issue is the parents. And there isn't much you can do about shitty parents unless you remove the child from the home, which is typically only done under the case of severe neglect or abuse. The state doesn't and shouldn't have say about how people conduct their private affairs though and how you raise children is very much a private affair.

It's bad for kids. Like, objectively proven to be bad.

People say there are parents who do it for good reasons and do a good job, but I haven't seen that and find it hard to imagine as being common. The person I know who was homeschooled had his life destroyed by his parents, with homeschooling being the first of a series of horrifying blows to his mental state. He doesn't know the very basics of how society works or anything about math, science, history, or language, but he thinks he knows everything. He seems to think everything taught to kids in school is wrong or unimportant. But his Internet rabbit holes? Invaluable.

Ps he was homeschooled because his parents were religious extremists.

Depends on the where and why.

In the Netherlands because you think it's inadequate? No, the public education system there is exceptional, this is objectively the wrong position.

In the Deep South in the US because you feel the education system is inadequate, racist, corrupted by christofascism, and designed for failure? Based, there are plenty of good homeschool co-ops for parents with the same gripes.

In the Deep South because you think it isn't loony enough and you want your kid to be a raging lunatic like you? Go fuck yourself. Seriously. Stop having children.

I was homeschooled 4th through 8th grade. Only the actual book work was done at home tho. Still had other stuff that involved more hands on classes with other kids for a lotta shit. Choir, PE, drama, even science (I came 3rd in the 7th grade science decathalon for my balsa wood plane). The only book work also done with other kids was the stabdaridized testing thing.

I actually made more friends being homeschooled than I did when I went to regular school. Wasn't bullied, either. 🤷‍♂️

My experience is the same. I think it can possibly work but most who do it are not competent enough to do it. Likely those that are are likely to competent to have the time. Even if you are you realize you need several people like yourself with similar aged kids to cover various basis which at that point is called a school. At some point to the subjects get advanced enough that its going to be increasingly hard for a single parent to cover them. I can say I sub for high school and there is a reason teachers a subjective specific at that point. Its one thing to do various curriculums for various classes in the same subject but keeping up with half a dozen completely different curriculums. You end up leaning on the preset things that basically the people are trying to avoid with public school but now your kid is losing different perspectives, the social aspects, and the challenges of having to figure things out for themselves. Add to this that very early education benefits massively from socialization and is more about that. So like pres school. kindergarten. you need other kids. maybe you can do 1-3 and utilize the public school things. like bring your kid over for recess or clubs and sports if they have them (this is a big reason most peoples home schooling falls flat you sorta need this stuff). maybe you can do 4 or 5 but even junior high they need to start making decisions for subjects and learning to learn from strangers and likley one adult is not going to cut it. Honestly they would be better off putting the effort to working with their kid after school.

I was homeschooled k-12 because my parents didn't want me to learn about evolution and "communism". I didn't have any close friends ever growing up because there was just no opportunity for that. I didn't have extended participation with other kids on a daily basis like I would've gotten if I was in a real school. At best I had some playtime outside of school hours with a few of my neighbors and there was things like Boy Scouts and tennis club. But it wasn't enough. It really stunted the development of my social skills. Throughout my 20s I was I having to learn a lot about how to make and maintain friendships and just like socialize and talk to people and date and such, things that most people would've done in their tweens and teens.

I guess one nice perk was I never really had to deal with bullying as a kid? But then when I encountered bullies as an adult (terrible roommates, colleagues, coworkers etc) I didn't have the skills to deal with them well.

I'm in my mid 30s now, and I still struggle with socializing but I'm better at it. I've been in a relationship for 4 years and I'm relatively content with my life at least.

I homeschool my kids and each kid is different. My son is awkward AF because he is autistic and has ADHD so yeah he will be one of those weird homeschoolers later in life and it will be in part because he didn’t get to socialize in school but because of his autism and ADHD it’s forced us to bring him into home school to keep him regulated and on task which wasn’t happening in public school.

My daughter who is now an adult didn’t enter homeschool until her sophomore year of high school. It was because HS was a mental issue for her and she just couldn’t do it with the pressures and social anxiety that came with being in HS.

She is also socially awkward but not as much as my son.

All of this to say that yes you’re right. HS kids are more often than not socially awkward but it’s not because they were homeschooled per se.

In some cases like mine they were already socially awkward or uncomfortable which in turn lead to the homeschooling because they couldn’t cut it in public school.

100% depends on the parents' education and if they believe in conspiracies.

For under-educated parents, your kids need to be in school.

If the parents graduated high-school and are well adjusted, rational people, I see no issue with homeschooling.