Oddbean

Homeschooling is/was one of the best decisions I ever made and neither of my kids is typical. My eldest is super gifted (he was reading at the college level in 2nd grade and we studied relativistic physics in 9th grade), but he does have issues with fine motor skills (we did handwriting through middle school) and has trouble with figures of speech. My youngest has Down Syndrome and has difficulty with learning. He is 17, but most of his school work is near the 3rd grade level. I'll probably homeschool him until he is 21. Even though the two were completely different, homeschooling was the best thing for them and it has made our family very close. Even though my son is away at Liberty University, doing well in classes, and making lots of good friends, I still get a call every week or two to check in. (I kind of feel bad at how infrequently I called home when I was in college). Originally, I had thought I would homeschool when my kids were really young, and sometime later (highschool?) I'd put them into the government schools to "acclimate" them to the world's culture. I've since changed my mind. If you have a decent school like I did, allowing the kid to learn basic reading and writing in the early elementary ages, may not be too bad (not true in all areas, but I'm in a conservative area and we have school choice). Once you get to high school it is almost all indoctrination and the way the schools operate actually kills a love of learning and independent though. Also, once you get to high school, kids are able to do a lot of learning on their own if necessary. My eldest also took college classes for free in high school. He took one class online each semester in 10th grade and three classes each semester at the college in 11th-12th grade. Since he was bright, hard working, loved learning, and knew how to learn on his own, he actually got "Math Student of the Year" at the local community college his senior year. He would get excited about math and go talk to his professors about what was discussed in class and beyond. It was comical one day when he came home after a group project to tell me, "I didn't realize everyone doesn't love math as much as I do." With homeschooling we had taught him to love learning and to learn on his own. That will be with him forever. It may be the most important thing he learned in school.

Home schooling is such a wonderful thing. It allows us to protect our kids from evil and indoctrination. It allows us to teach our kids how to learn, how to think, and to love learning instead of how to recite back facts. It allows us to teach according to each kid's own learning style. It allows us to spend extra time helping areas of weakness, following interests, and accentuating strengths. It builds a closer relationship between kids and their parents because the kids know how much their parent is giving to help them. For a single parent, homeschooling may be difficult (although I do know one single parent mom of two kids, one special needs, who homeschools her kids and loves it. For a married couple, I think it is ultra rare that a family can't homeschool if they decide it is important. There are a lot of costs associated with working (work clothes, eating out, gas, a 2nd car, child care, etc.) that aren't there if one stays home with the kids. In many cases, cutting these expenses (and having someone home to cook from scratch rather than eating out or buying more expensive pre-made/cooked meals) doesn't make the family live much less especially if you take into account child care for multiple kids during working. I'd recommend parents spend their time thinking "how can I?" rather than "reasons why I can't..." You will be so glad you did.

wrong, doesn't protect from evil. according to your worldview evil is within. as an example, up to 50~60% of child sex abuse is perpetrated by older siblings, and the perps are usually under 18 themselves. at least be fucking consistent within your worldview