8 Reasons to Not Home School Your Children ...

By Neecey

8 Reasons to Not Home School Your Children ...

I thought it was only right that I present the reasons for not home schooling given that I had already written reasons in its favor. There are disadvantages of home schooling that need to be considered alongside the positive arguments expressed in the earlier article. Let’s take a look at some of the main reasons for not home schooling your children.

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1

Structure, Discipline and Time Management

One of the prime reasons for not home schooling is the motivation for instituting a routine. When you’re at home, and you have nowhere to be, there is no imperative to be in a rush to start the lessons. If the child might be in a bad or uncooperative mood that day, how does the hapless mother get him or her to the designated learning area and then try to teach that bundle of joy? Whereas when they are bundled off to school, they will often snap out of a mood once they say hi to their friends, and go on to have a productive day of lessons and a generally fine day. In the structured environment of school, the kids learn discipline and time management, and learn to work within a structure. These are essential skills that we all need in the big world. A base that lacks these will lead to a newly-minted adult being thrown into a shark tank.

2

What Qualifies a Parent to Be a Teacher?

We already don’t need a permit to be a parent. I think a lot of you will agree that many, many parents wouldn’t pass if we needed certification to have children. So what qualifies a parent to teach or undertake home schooling? In that case, why do we require our teachers to be trained? The usual parent to home school is the mother. By definition, she is a housewife. If she’s been a housewife since she had her kiddies, or even if she recently left the workplace, how in touch is she with the world? While some mothers are, I'm sure, quite qualified to teach their children, there are some who likely are not.

3

Objective and Practical Application

A parent teaching their own child (let’s assume it’s mom) means that she relates to her child as a teacher the same way she relates to him/her as a mom. She molds the child as a parent, now she gets to mold that young mind as a teacher. She hears the child as her kiddie, not as a student; she has the same ears. The student will not be heard as he/she would be by an objective teacher. That’s not taking into account her life experience. What if she were useless at math at school? Or history? Home schooling by an untrained parent is not desirable. Toss in a stressed mother that never gets a break from motherhood except when the child is tucked in for the night, and you’ve got an unhealthy mix. This is not even touching on how the environment of home schooling may facilitate abuse; where is the counselor for the child to go to for help? Again, I'm sure there are exceptions to this.

4

Assessing the Student

Momma sees her baby as the best thing since sliced bread. Or conversely, Momma thinks Ethan or Jenna is a little behind the bell curve, if you know what I mean. A mother doesn't always have the objectivity needed to properly assess progress, or lack of it. I’ll argue that she won’t recognize a gifted child. Nor one that may need specialized attention, or remedial learning. Those non-normative children will fall through the cracks, whereas in general, across-the board institutionalized assessments would have caught them.

5

A Biased Point of View

Another of the disadvantages of home schooling is that the child is only exposed to one tutor’s point of view; that view may be biased about certain areas to the point of blindness. A child who is at school is exposed to many distinctly different points of view of many educated teachers, and so their horizon becomes expanded.

Famous Quotes

Meaning is not what you start with but what you end up with.

Peter Elbow
6

Inspiration from a Teacher

Many of us can point to an inspirational teacher, and most of us will claim one of our parents was possibly more inspirational than the other. What happens when they fuse to become the one person? How sad to sentence a child to be deprived of one source of inspiration and influence because home schooling isolates children from skilled educators. Even the most talented home-school mom would love that her child was inspired by a stellar teacher, other than her.

7

After-school Activities

Extra-curricular activities are a hugely important fact of education. Sports teach you how to be part of a team as well as instilling a sense of competition. Other activities forge relationships and present a huge number of developmental opportunities for the growing child. There is much more effort involved to enable home-schooled children to participate in after school clubs, sports teams, and all those activities that are primarily organized and run by educational institutes.

8

Friendship and Interaction with Peers

Kids form close friendships at school. These friendships may end after school, or they may last a lifetime. Either way, they form part of who we are, and our memories. Kids who are isolated at home away from their peers have far less opportunity to befriend others, and will inevitably end up with a smaller group of friends, if at all. Sure, some home-schooled kids still have a big circle of friends, and some public-schooled friends don't have many, but it's a fair generalization.

I believe the above reasons for not home schooling are far from comprehensive, but provide a few good points to counter balance the advantages presented earlier. Hopefully together, the 2 articles will provide a good view of both sides of the argument. Were or are you being home-schooled? Did you experience any of these disadvantages?

Feedback Junction

Where Thoughts and Opinions Converge

@Lyndsie it is sad that people still think that way. However, if you think about it, schools began at home ( one-room school house). Which that is all homeschooling is. Thank you for your positive comment!

Noted the response above - Neecey does not have children, and does not espouse any particular point of view on the issue. Why then is she compelled to write about it??

I was homeschooled from the 1st grade. And i'm guessing you weren't? Because, all the things you mentioned are something a non-homeschooled person would say. The biggest thing, that irritates me is when people say that homeschooled kids don't interact with their peers. We have homeschool groups!! We go on field trips, we go to regular school to, and to college. Being homeschooled is ultimately up to the child, they can make it a positive challenge or a negative one. All your reasons are fair and true to some extent. However, just because a person has a degree to teach, does not mean that they are mentally capable of doing the job.

Not sure when this was posted. For the record, Laura's comments were uncalled for and reactionary. I have not yet read the entry about Reasons to Homeschool, but I homeschool my daughter and am talking with a couple friends who are considering it. It's not for everyone and I'm not sure I really want to homeschool the whole way through. A lot of things will factor into that decision. But for anyone looking for legitimate arguments against homeschooling, this entry are those three steps back. I realize the devil's advocate position and that there is a separate entry referring to the "other side" of the story, but maybe we could use this opportunity and voice to research a little bit and debunk the myths while presenting legitimate arguments for both sides. I was curious as to accurate and well thought out reasons against homeschool and found several. None of which are on this list. The 8 reasons not to consists mostly of homeschooling myths. I would say great reasons not to homeschool might include some of the following-- 1- You live in a great district with small class sizes and world renowned teachers, 2- You don't have the time (and can't come up with the time) to dedicate to think through which curriculum might work best, 3- You don't know how to read and lack basic critical thinking skills and problem solving, 4- You don't enjoy learning in any form (if you don't, how can you teach your child), 5- Money. There are free options, but there are always expenses. 6-- You already have a tense relationship with your child (There is a need for homeschool parents to indeed separate mom the teacher and mom the mom. Just as the teacher at school isn't the woman who goes home at night and just as you are not to your spouse as you are with your kids, that separation is not always clear, but some semblance of it is necessary. If you constantly fight with and do not feel you understand your child, the time in school could indeed be necessary), 7- Your heart isn't in it.

I wonder if the woman who wrote this article has children? I think the tone of her writing in this instance is completely sexist, and terribly narrow-minded. If her ignorance stems from lack of personal experience, well, I suppose that's understandable, but still not forgivable. If she does have children and still looks at child-rearing and education this way, I pity her poor children. Open your eyes, Neecey (btw - what kind of name is that? Am I supposed to take you seriously?) the world is full of possibilities. A stay at home mother could actually have enough brain cells to remain aware of what's going on in the world ... and could actually be very competent to educate her own children. Her children could actually benefit from the individualized attention, and could actually enjoy learning. I think your point of view is myopic.

I totally agree

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