Homeschooled-reading field guides for fun
Homeschoolers know of all the perceived cons, we hear about them from family, friends and even strangers who don’t approve of our choice to homeschool, most likely because they don’t really understand it. So, knowing that everything has it’s pros and cons, even homeschooling, I wanted to do a post that addressed the real cons actual homeschooling families face.
The cons for one family are not the same as the cons for another, I thought it best to not base this just on our little family. I decided to survey some homeschoolers on the internet, new homeschoolers, veteran homeschoolers, and homeschoolers who use different educational methods.
So what did my list turn up?
- You have to look harder for some opportunities that public school kids get, and no I don’t mean just socialization, I mean you learn a lot about not only what public school offers your child but also the school often sends home fliers about groups, events, etc in the community. If your child isn’t in public school, you have to hunt and find out about these things and when they are on your own, so you have to learn about your community and it’s resources. This can be much harder in small towns as they often don’t have websites or have fairly useless websites. (This my biggest con personally)
- Another big one is dealing with the negative comments about homeschooling from everyone: friends, family and even strangers that think they know what’s best for your family better than you do and how you are not qualified, going to ruin your children, and the ever so popular ‘what about socialization?’, etc. People question you more, you’re going against the grain, anytime you do that, people are going to question, look down and sometimes even attack you for doing so. It just goes with the territory. Most people don’t just wake up one day and go “I think I’ll pull my kids out of school and homeschool them” A lot of thought and research goes into the decision.
- Living on one income-plus the added expense of homeschooling. This was never an issue for us as we’ve always been one income since the day we married, but if you’re pulling an older kid out of school, this may be a big issue for some families. We still pay school taxes for your kids to attend public school, but we don’t use those resources, and have to pay out of pocket for our homeschool resources.
- Cost-yes you can totally homeschool for basically free, (gas to get to the library and computer with printer and internet) but most families don’t, most buy at least some curriculum. Then there are co-ops, classes, field trips, sports, groups, etc It can add up quick.
- Your children being compared to public school kids – many homeschoolers don’t teach to state standards. Some choose to teach mastery rather than the spiral approach most public schools use. All these things can make your kids seem “behind” to people who don’t understand that you’re taking a different educational approach than public school. And God forbid you have a shy child-it’ll be because you homeschool him. No matter what your child’s personality quirks or weaknesses are, it will be blamed on the fact that you homeschool him. (As if there are no shy public school kids!)
- Lack of privacy or “me” time or too much ‘togetherness’. Most families deal with this, but it’s amplified in homeschooling families.
- Planning is time consuming – many homeschoolers plan lessons, I tried it for a while and it was very time consuming. We unschool now, so this is a total non-issue for us.
- Don’t have a lot of time to make new friends or keep up with old ones-with one income sometimes this means only one car as well. As I stated earlier, cons vary by family-this is a con we have not experienced in the least-quite the opposite, we have more time for friends and family.
- No free babysitter (public school) for you to run errands or go to appointments - you have to take your kids with you or book a babysitter for appointments because the kids are not in public school.
- Lack of adult conversation-This one isn’t just homeschooling moms! I had this problem when I was just a SAHM of babies/toddlers, but can still be an issue for homeschooling moms as well. Personally, I actually don’t seem to have this problem as much since we began homeschooling, my 7 year old is quite bright and often times engages in some great conversations with me.
- Lack of space in house-being one income can mean a smaller house. Also, with bigger families common among homeschoolers, the need for another bedroom may out weigh having a designated classroom to store supplies in or do big/messy projects in.
- Makes getting/having a job difficult. Again, no free babysitter while they attend the local public school. Plus HSLDA asks that you not leave children under 14 home alone even if you don’t have state laws about what age a child can be left home alone.
- House is always a mess. ALWAYS. huge. mess. never clean. ever.
Isolation - is it a real homeschooling con?
- If you are an anti-social homebody/introvert/shy/suffer from social anxiety, etc, it’s going to be hard for you getting your kids the socialization they might want/need, especially if your child is a social butterfly. Everyone is different. If you love to go out and make new friends and meet new you’ll have no problem making the effort. But if you are happy to sit home alone all day, it may be harder for you to have the motivation to sign your child up for stuff if you tend to be a loner.
- The lack of group discussion and group activities-many homeschoolers join local co-ops , but some places just don’t have many homeschoolers, if you’re in one of those places (or if money is an issue-some co-ops are quite expensive) your kids might not be able to have access to this.
- Bad library can run your costs up. I’m very blessed to have access to a wonderful library and our state has a great library system where I have access to what’s inside 275 libraries (that would be 9.6 million books and other materials I can have delivered to my local library!) Many homeschoolers use their library a lot for living books and such to supplement their curriculum or even instead of a boxed curriculum. A subpar can end up costing your homeschooling family a fortune.
- State regulations – Homeschooling (and unschooling) is legal in all 50 states, it just requires more paperwork and hassle in some.
- Some people can hide. Yes, there are those homeschooling families that do fail their children and fail them miserably, but just because those are the only ones you hear about, doesn’t mean we all just want to lock our kids up and be lazy all day and not actually teach them anything! Those are just the ones that makes for ‘good’ news stories, ‘good’ tv and movies, etc. So those are the ones you hear about. By far, good homeschooling families outweigh the bad. There are parents of public school children that fail their children as well.
- And I had to share this gem…shared with me on a forum where I asked the cons of homeschooling.
The kids’ behavior isn’t shaped by their peers……….. I know that is usually a good thing, but sometimes it is a bad thing.
Take a homeschooled kid that picks his nose….A LOT! You have told him forty beleventy times a day not to do it…. you threaten and scream….. and that finger is magically drawn to the nasal cavity to pluck out another juicy bit. Let that same kid do that one time in front of a group of public schooled neighborhood kids and get teased for it………. and voile! The child of yours is no longer a nose picker (at least not as bad of one). LOL
So, as you can see, there are, of course, pros and cons. But for most families, I think the pros outweigh the cons 10 to 1, otherwise, we wouldn’t be doing this. It can be hard work, we have bad days, things don’t go as planned, it can be a financial burden, it does have cons…..but so does public school.
We crazy homeschooling families do it for the pros. We do it for the better test scores, for the love of learning, for the individualized education, for better socialized children, for the doing better in college, for instilling our faith in our children, for letting kids be kids, for letting them follow their dreams, for the quality time together, for siblings being best friends, for so many reasons.
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Sonita Lewis
Living, Learning, Laughing, Loving - In the freedom of Christ {Free.Learning.Life} Kindle freebie junkie. Lover of home cooking. More at http://bit.ly/abtsonita
25 Responses to Actual Cons of Homeschooling
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Wonderful! I’ve just begun homeschooling after pulling my child out of charter school.. It is tough in some ways and very easy and fun in other ways… The main con I have is scheduling my other work around recess time and other activities. I do believe that some people think of public schools as a baby sitter.. I’m hearing the negative comments already and the innuendos, covert remarks. My child is happy and as long as I can do it, I plan to… It is so wonderful to see what most parents don’t see – their child learn- their faces light up and their eagerness.
Yeah-I knew I wanted to homeschool before my oldest was old enough and I got tired of the ‘socialization’ comment then.
And-in full disclosure-my oldest attended 2 years of PS, so I have had experience with PS and homeschool.
GREAT! So glad you took the time to respond!!
Thank you Linda.
Very nice! Personally, transportation is our biggest challenge. I have a disability that prevents me from driving, but there’s also a park within walking distance and since we live in townhouses, lots of kids for our little boy to play with. He’s only 2, so too young yet for the art classes we’re going to enroll him in or gymnastics, but both of those are not only held on days hubby is off to drive, but the gymnastics is with the Y and will pick us up! Not to mention that there are plenty of families we know who’ll be more than happy to give me and my son a ride when he’s old enough to go with their kids to soccer or baseball or whatever. In exchange, I had to promise babysitting and the occasional dinner, but hey, not a problem!
Thankfully, one income isn’t a problem as I work from home, though that has it’s own challenges with a toddler! We also don’t have the greatest library, but so far, it’s been perfect and hopefully will stay that way.
Being able to afford gas for transportation is changeling for us right now! LOL So I understand. My children still have plenty of socialization with people of all ages though-and we do music and art in our homeschool too.
All of my sons’ PS friend kids love to come over and do homeschool projects with us
I am homeschooling my kids this year (3rd & 5th grades) and I absolutely agree with every single con. You are dead on!
For now the pros do outweigh the cons for me, but I don’t know if that will always be the case.
-FringeGirl
Great article as always Sonita! I agree with you. You spelled it out nicely from a realistic perspective. Thank you for representing homeschoolers so well.
You’re too kind Richele, thank you.
Interesting list, and this homeschooling mama agrees! It’s funny that I posted something very similar on my blog yesterday: “10 Things I Dislike About Homeschooling.”
There definitely are cons to this way of life, and I think we do new home teachers a disservice if we only tout the benefits but neglect to mention that it can be a very hard choice, for many reasons.
Much like breastfeeding! LOL
Everyone is different so your pros and cons will be different from mine, but as with everything, there are pros and cons to every choice we make. I just think the cons should be represented in an honest light and not from stereotypes from someone who has never homeschooled or done any research.
“And God forbid you have a shy child-it’ll be because you homeschool him.”
Everyone seems to forget the shy, socially awkward, and often-teased kids commonly referred to as “geeks,” “twerps,” or “nerds,” who roamed the edges of the hallways of our schools, desperately hoping that no one would notice them. I wonder if they would join the anti-homeschooling bandwagon, raving about the benefits of public school socialization?
Good article.
I’m just saying, you can’t say homeschooling is what made the one homeschooler you know shy-maybe they were homeschooled because PS was so traumatic for such a shy child!
Great point Arby! I had a fine education (although i only remember what i was interested in learning) in the Wisconsin PS i attended long, long time ago, but the “socialization” was excruciating and detrimental for me. I was one of those introverted, socially awkward, clutsy, not very cute, book worm girls that was the object of social entertainment (aka bullying) from K-12. Even though this social butterfly finally emerged from her cocoon after moving far away from my home town, and my kids are so much cooler than i ever dreamed of being, guess where they are educated??? Yep, at home and they socialized plenty. I share some of those teacher cons and they have their own list i’m sure, but we all ultimately agree that this is the best thing for our family.
I was homeschooled along with my younger brother and sister. We all did wonderfully and scored high on our GED testing. I remember it as a wonderful experience. Being home was so much less stressful for us, and I felt like I was getting so much more out of my schooling than my friends were (Yes, I had friends!!) I actually looked forward to learning something.
I agree with the cons, especially the messy house, and we always got the comments about how there must be something wrong with us because we didn’t go to school. But looking back, it was well worth it and I am so glad that my parents stuck with it.
I live in a city with a wonderful library system and many parks within walking distance, so the cost part won’t apply to my family, and our neighborhood is full of younger families with children that mine will be able to socialize with, but despite all the other cons I will still homeschool my children, because I know firsthand what benefits it brings.
So good to hear from a grown homeschooler! Thanks for the comment!
[...] Actual Cons of Homeschooling Nice to see a post about home educating that a) dares to point out some downsides and b) is actually realistic and written by a home educator rather than somebody who once knew someone who had a cousin who was homeschooled and I met him once and he seemed a bit weird so homeschooling is damaging all children. Always. (Because no kid went to a ‘normal’ school and was a bit weird. Right?) [...]
Just wanted to chime in and say thank-you. Thank-you for daring to say there are some downsides to homeschooling (so rare to see) but also for refuting certain people who write about homeschooling having never actually experienced it!
And I’m another one who despairs of the whole ‘I met a kid once and he was a bit weird and he was homeschooled QED all homeschooled kids are weird, because of homeschooling’. Really, did you NEVER meet a ‘weird’ kid who went to ‘normal’ school?
Thanks. I think the reason you rarely see articles about the actual negatives to homeschooling is because we have to spend so much time defending the perceived cons that people who know nothing about homeschooling have.
Nice to see another unschooling mom here
Well done! My biggest pet peeve is having strangers try to tell me how I am parenting wrong because we homeschool. I have to bit my tongue to not ask them where they learned their manners..or didn’t learn them, apparently.
Cost is big for us, because we don’t have access to the sports and clubs at the public school we feel like we should have our kids in several activities-which do cost quite a bit.
it was nice to read such a thoughtful, balanced piece on homeschooling, rather than the usual hit piece.
Great article, thanks for sharing. I think I tend to over enroll my kids in social activities because of concern over this(although it is all things they LOVE to do). With 4 kids this makes for a very busy life. Luckily we do live in an area that has a very large population of homeschooling families so on top of all the sports/activities/etc. they also have no shortage of homeschool group activities to be involved in. The nose picking comment cracked me up.
Great article. I didn’t start homeschooling yet, but I will starting in the fall and the biggest problem I see is all these people questioning my sanity
when I tell them that I have decided to homeschool. And, yes, the first question is always about socialization, as if all the public school kids are social butterflies 
Thanks for this blog! I intent to pull my 5 year old out of her Kindergarten (in Hawaii… it’s a terrible school-system where I have caught teachers blatantly lying to students, and they don’t stand near the rest-rooms while the students use them and thus other students are free to intrude…ect.), and I’m getting nervous about the whole process so… here I am… researching and reading others thoughts. Thanks! =)
Glad you find it helpful! Check out HSLDA.org (for your state laws) then yahoo groups for local groups. Other than that just find blogs, FB pages, etc of homeschool moms/groups. There are plenty of resources to get all your questioned answered!