Rhian wrote:Got a few questions, stemming from curiosity:
How do you deal with the social side of things? At school you have to learn to deal with others your own age, younger children, older ones plus various teachers/visitors/school employees. Not saying everyone learns to deal with them well...but how do you "make up" for this "lack" of interaction?
Being in a room and being forced to get along with 30 kids born in the same year as you is super unnatural so I have no need to make up for that. Homeschooled kids are not hermits. In fact not being stuck in a single room 5+ hours a day means they can interact with all kinds of people in the community, including other homeschool kids. My kids in particular have tons of friends and are almost too social. They spend the best parts of the day outside in fresh air playing. They also spend their childhood playing with their siblings and forming lifelong bonds that would be far more limited if they were all off to different classrooms all day.
Don't sometimes parent and child get fed up of each other? I mean that is a lot of time to spend together. Normally a child being at school gives the parent a "break" and the parent being at work gives the child a break.
These are the main pitfalls I see which is why I wonder how you who HS deal with them, in so so many respects HS seems like such a good idea.
Learning to have healthy boundaries is actually a huge benefit of homeschooling. We learn to work out our problems and verbalize our needs for interaction/ isolation. I do believe that children being raised in a family and in a community is the proper order of things and I won't give up that responsibility easily and without thought. Brick and mortar schools can be right for families and might even be right for us at some point but from my point of view sending your kids out of the house for hours a day is what requires thought and justification, not keeping them home in the family.