Overview: Homeschoolers often feel misunderstood by non-homeschoolers. I polled my readers to find out what homeschool moms wish the outside world understood. Here’s what they said!
Homeschoolers often feel misunderstood by the outside world. People pepper us with questions about the educational choice that we’ve made for our children and they often don’t understand why we would choose a life where we are paddling upstream.
I recently polled my Facebook readers to ask them what they wished the outside world understood about homeschool families and I received some amazing responses. I thought that reading their answers would encourage you!
Here are 25 Things Homeschool Moms Wish the Outside World Understood about Homeschool Families:
1 – I’m doing what’s best for my children and I don’t judge anyone who sends their kids to public school. We’re all doing what fits our families the best.
2 – That fish don’t climb trees!
3 – We socialize! Our kids learn! Maybe not at the breakneck speed of public schools, but they still learn! Not all of us set out for spelling bee/NASA bound/Ph.D. at 13 children! Stop pop quizzing our kids at the supermarket! Basically, we do things! And lots of things! And we do it all differently and WE LOVE IT!
4 – We aren’t all super geniuses and don’t enjoy pop quizzes.
5 – That we typically don’t learn anywhere remotely on the same schedule as public schools. Saying she’s in “7th grade” is just for a non-homeschoolers benefit. We don’t care about levels and it’s amazingly freeing not to.
→ Related Content: Homeschool Moms Speak Up About the Benefits of Homeschooling6 – That our kids are socialized!
7 – That we don’t hate teachers & brick and mortar schools just because homeschooling is right for our children.
8 – My kids are just fine.
9 – I’m overwhelmed, but not in the way you think! Yes, it’s a lot of work, but I enjoy it. I love my kids and being busy investing in them is not ruining my life, it’s making my life fuller the way it was meant to be. Please get the image out of your head that I spend my days stressed, exhausted, and staring out the window wishing someone would save me.
10 – We are not all the same!
11 – We don’t judge others who don’t homeschool. Or think we’re better because we homeschool. And not all of us keep public school schedules.
12 – We are not weird.
13 – That up until a couple of centuries ago, most children were homeschooled, except for the very wealthy or in certain cultures that had schools for (mostly) boys. We just have a lot more resources now! So, if my children miss going to proms or pep rallies, they will survive, just like those children a few generations ago did.
14 – I wish they understood that if you take the time to be with your child 24/7 you will probably like them, and like being around them. The idea that you NEED your kids to go to public school because you “can’t handle them” is the very reason why kids don’t have close relationships with their parents. If you send your child to be raised by someone else, you’re giving the best of your child to that other person. I want to raise MY children, and get the best of them, watching them learn instead of just hearing about it second (or 3rd, 4th, 5th) hand.
15 – That not all homeschooled kids get full-ride scholarships to college or even want to go. My oldest has a well-paying job and finally will be taking classes at the community college. Why there? One, because it’s cheap. Two, because it fits into his schedule. Three, it’s on his way to work. What’s not to love?
16 – That the reason we homeschool is that our kids are unique, with different levels of understanding and development. That what makes one tick bores another and that testing is not the same as understanding.
17 – We actually do have our child’s best interest at heart and much of my educational philosophy predates public education by a hundred years or better.
18 – That we don’t utilize public schools to keep our kids home for the parents to play and the kids to be cleaning/work slaves.
19 – Socializing comes from being around people outside of a school setting, also.
20 – We don’t have any more patience than any other mom and our children don’t need “real school” to be “normal.”
21 – Nothing. I enjoy being different. I enjoy the questions and the opportunity to prove people wrong.
22 – That our decision to homeschool, the curriculum we choose, and the progress we make, is not their business unless we choose to share that information.
23 – That I actually like to homeschool I’m actually excited to plan curriculum and teach my children. It’s not something I’m forced to do and it’s not just because I hate public schools.
24 – That our houses are going to look a bit different from families whose children are gone for the majority of the day.
25 – Yes, homeschooling teens of driving age are allowed to get drivers licenses. Not sure why I get asked or told that my kids can’t get a drivers license until they are 20.
Well said. What do YOU wish the outside world understood about homeschool families?
We can tap into our children’s learning styles and individual strengths and teach in a way that helps them not only learn better but maintain what they’ve learned.
Yes! This is also excellent. Thanks for sharing this, Cheryce!
I am a second-generation homeschooler. I’m not sure what I wish the outside world would know, but #15 really resonated with me. I didn’t go to college besides Bible College and I’m done feeling ashamed of that.
Good for you, Rosanna!!!
I’d like them to understand that I do what I do out of love. It’s not a political statement, religious statement, or any kind of statement. I loe my kids and the best education I can give them is through home school. Homes school options include private tutors, DVD instructors, computer based curriculum, and lots of field trips. YES, we plan to homeschool through graduation. No my children aren’t slow, quite the opposite. Public school is for average kids. If my kids were average that is where they’d be. Instead they are unique individuals that I don’t choose to push into a cookie cutter form. Teachers hand are so tied these days they can’t teach to the individual child like they used to. If the kid doesn’t “get it” the way the teacher has to teach it, too bad. I don’t want mediocre for my kids. I want mastery of material and I want to choose what that material is.
This is beautiful, Tracy!
I love this post. Tracy Robinso, I would like to clear something up though. I have homeschooled, and I have kids in public school. It’s quite a statement to say public school is for AVERAGE kids. I strongly disagree. As Michelle noted, it’s what works for your family. It has nothing to do with quality or time – each has it’s challenges, and each has it’s goodness. It’s simply what works for your family. There are bad public schools, and there are great public schools. There are bad homeschool situations, and there are excellent homeschool situations. I hope you will find that to be true from speaking to other moms in various schooling situations. Public schools have gotten quite a negative reputation in recent years, but there are some amazing schools, and incredible systems out there. When it isn’t a good system, I agree, it is better to go in another direction. It’s easy to judge one type of schooling while in another. It is perfectly alright to home school, and it’s perfectly alright to send your kids to public, private, or boarding school, if it serves your family’s needs 🙂 Take care.
That homeschooling is a full time job. I don’t always have time to do this, that and the other thing. And its also unpredictable. We might learn at 10pm or 6am. We might go for weeks without sitting down to a book or we might dig in and dig deep all summer.
I wish they understood that what my children learn in a year isn’t going to look the same as what their children learn in a year. Our whole teaser might be spent learning about WWII or Greek Mythology or the Titanic. We might not touch a math book this year but instead focus on just reading and writing.
So true! Excellent points!
I’m a second-gen homeschooler and I’m glad more people are realizing it’s “normal”. The difference I see between how people used to respond to my mom when she talked about homeschooling versus how most people reapond to me is like night and day. Which is good. Because I’m nowhere near as nice to rude people as my mom was
That’s a great observation. I always love hearing the perspective of homeschoolers who were homeschooled themselves!
Every parent homeschools their children. All of them. It’s just that I choose to do it exclusively. But all parents are teaching their kids how to walk and talk and be polite and stranger danger and if they send them to school then they end up teaching them come homework time. We all teach our kids at home but I just chose to teach at home exclusively.
Great point!
i wish they knew that i’m the same. i’m still a mum, with good days and bad days. i commit to patience and fall into seasons of yelling. i feel insecure about my parenting at times & I champion my choices at times. i too want to pee alone… i wish people knew that as a community of parents/carers… we have more similarities than differences.
So true! Great reminder, Gabrielle.
I love this! I have learned so much over the years about homeschool families that totally challenged what I had always thought as well. Now that I am homeschooling my own children, I honestly can’t imagine sending them to a school. I particularly agree with the point that up until recently, most people were homeschooled. Our society has adjusted so quickly to the notion of education being something that happens in a large group setting! I feel my children will be far more prepared for the “real world” if they have a peek into the adult world as children, i.e. being home with me and actually out and about in the real world during regular school hours!
Amen. That’s so true, Isa. Our kids are the ones who are actually being socialized into the real world rather than the artificial world inside of a school building.
So thankful to have this privilege to be on this educational journey with my kids! It already makes me sad thinking of one day it ending! We have th beauty to select curriculum that suits a particular child, go slower or faster if needed. No need to stay boxed in at a grade level.
Great advice. Yes, I’ve only got a few years left as well and it’s so sad to think about it. The silver lining, however, is seeing how my boys are blossoming into amazing young men. That makes it easier. I hope your final homeschooling years with your kids is AMAZING and that you’re able to make lots of sweet memories with them.
I’d tell them (if they are judging) that I don’t care one iota what they think. I go against the flow in numerous ways out of respect for what is best for my family and my kids as individuals. One just graduated a year early from public high school, I continued homeschooling my second and my third just started homeschool. Plus I have a baby and am in my forties (was personally homeschooled for 2-6th grade) and I just don’t care if others dislike what I’m doing.
Good for you, Jen. Way to do what is best for each of your kids!
We don’t magically get extra time during the day. Just because we are technically “home” most of the day, It doesn’t mean we always can or want to rearrange our schedule so that we are available to watch your younger kids while you go help your school aged child at school with a project or a field trip. I understand It’s hard for you to take the younger ones to the school with you, I get that, but so is doing school with my own kids with extra little ones running around. Just because we are “home” most of the time doesn’t mean we don’t do anything all day . We love homeschooling, but it really does take up a good portion of our time to homeschool kids and at the end of our school day we still have to feed our family, have household chores, (some like me) a part time job (some have full time jobs), husbands, and kids that need our time too. We are happy to help when we can, but just because we happen to be “home” most of the time doesn’t mean our time is endless .
Amen!!!
That we get to teach our kids things they thought weren’t important in school and have scraped it from curriculum. That we don’t keep the same hours as regular school so if we want to take the afternoon off and want to go do something fun we can. Stop asking “no school today”!!!!!!!!
1. It’s perfectly ok for me not to like public schools. It doesn’t mean that I hate teachers.
2. You don’t have to explain public school to me. I went to them ,lots of them.
3. It’s ok not to agree with my decision to homeschool without telling me repeatedly.
4. Yes ,I do enjoy being with my kids all the time. It only seems weird when you are not used to it.
5. Be careful what you assume. Just because you see me with my 5 year old twins doesn’t mean it’s a good opportunity to tell me I’m going to ruin their lives. If you took the time to get to know me just a little before lambasting my educational choices you would know that I also have two grown kids that I homeschooled.
6. Thank you to every person that something positive ,even if homeschooling isn’t your thing.
Great points!
That YOU can do it too!
YES!!! I love this. 🙂
I’d like people to know that our home schooled kids are not strange or weird. They are simply free to be who they are. Not molded by the latest fad or thought process of the PS mindset. They can function within any age group and actually have intelligent conversations with those in their 90’s those in their 30’s and those in their teens. I challenge people who question my choice to HS to sit down and talk to my son about anything. He is knowledgeable, friendly and though not the life of the party, he is pleasurable to be around and usually leaves his audience in stitches.