to all wondering how those homeschooled kids end up...

I just graduated 3 weeks ago (I've been homeschooled since 2nd grade).
Not only did I get accepted into every college I applied too, but I won a $68,000 scholarship at a fairly prestigious local private college. The two profs that interviewed me told me one of the deciding factors was all of my various interests that homeschooling let me study in depth.
So to all parents/guardians etc. wondering if it's worth sweating it out, it is!!!
~Corinne

 

Oh wow, thanks SO much! You have no idea what that means to me right now!

Several times a year I come to a day... or week where I am SO ready to throw in the towel & give up. But somewhere in the back of my head I KNOW what I'm doing is right so I plod on 'til the feeling goes away. It's so nice to see someone who WAS homeschooled saying it's worth it too
love,
mom

 

This might sound gay, but here it goes.

When i was a young child I was realy smart, when I was 2 I managed to walk to the candy store, it was a 10 minute walk downtown, my parenths got scared as hell.

When it was time for school I always got to go to the older chldren for math et c, cause I was to good. I finished my math book the same day I got it, they said I was extremly gifted!

My parenths got divorced I got sad I dont know. School was no more stimulating to me.I dropped out of high school, failed all my math tests et c, it was no longer stimulating.

Albert Einsten had no stimulation from school either, so he failed math in school and people thought he was retarded.

If you can homeschool your children then DO IT! Stimulate them, I think the reason I was once smart is cause Dad always used to teach me stuff and stimulate me in diffrent ways.

You can improve memory, you can improve IQ, so god damn people home schooling is the way to go!

 

I'm glad that I could provide some encouragement!

I helped my mother homeschool my younger brother and sister, and I know that "Why did I ever decide to do this?!!?!" feeling very well lol.
How many kids are you homeschooling?

 

I am homeschooling my two kids; 11 year old son & 7 year old daughter. Most days I know we're on the right track, it's just those days when I feel as if plowing a field with a toothpick would be easier that I start to doubt myself.

They do well - and help each other. DD is younger by 4 years, but has an intrinsic grasp of math & often can reword things in a way I'd never thought of such that her brother understands it. And DS loves to help her with her reading... they're the best of friends, which I will NEVER understand but for which I am eternally grateful
love,
mom

 

It's much the same in my family.
My younger brother has Asperger's Syndrome (a very mild form of autism). I don't have the learning diasbilities that he does, but our minds work in very similar ways. I help him almost exclusively because I understand how to reword things so that he gets it.
When I think of him in a public school system.....

 

Your brother is an Aspie?!? So is my son! Some days are better than others, but... ohhh, I hear ya with rewording things. Let's don't even go there with what it took to get him to comprehend long division!
love,
mom

 

My brother is the exact opposite!

He's very very good with math, but although he can read quickly, he doesn't comprehend what he's reading.
What fascinates me the most about teaching him is that he doesn't understand negatives. Trying to think of creative ways to explain why something doesn't happen without using "doesn't, won't , or can't" has probably been one of my biggest challenges with him (especially in science!).

 

I was homeschooled from the start until 6th grade. Up until that point, I was a fairly happy, well-contented person. Just before 6th grade, we moved. I had no friends, and I wanted to meet some new people. So I begged my parents to let me go to school, they said ok, I began school at the very end of sixth grade (right in the middle of the last semester). I was in school until the beginning of 9th grade. The years I was in 7th and 8th grade were the most unpleasant years of my life. All of my selfconfidence was completely undermined. I became angry, spiteful, I listened to Eminem at high decibels and screamed at my parents every time they asked me to do anything. I carried big knives around in school and slashed up the bus seats, lit one on fire, I got into fistfights every few weeks, I refused to do my homework, I started smoking pot and ciggarettes, I bought a bottle of whiskey from a friend and got drunk for the first time, I started stealing beer from my parents, sneaking out at night to spraypaint obscenities around and smash stuff, and stealing anything I could get my hands on just for the hell of it.

I was a horrible little bastard.

Over the summer after 8th grade, I went through a big transformation of a sort. I don't know really what happened. I started smoking a lot more pot, less ciggarettes. I fell in love. I started liking the hippy culture more and more. I became less angry. I'd sorta got it all out of my system, I guess. Gradually I built my selfconfidence up back not just to previous levels but beyond them. I'm now very sure of myself, I don't need to prove anything.

When I went back to 9th grade after the summer, it wasn't so bad. I was more prepared for the nasty spiteful kids which inhabit my school. I was ready to continue being individual and not care what the kids thought of me. But I realized I really wasn't getting much out of school. I wasn't learning an awful lot in the schoolbuilding. Most of what I learned I learned from the homework, which I didn't like doing because when I'd get home from school, I'd be sick of schooling, I'd just want to chill out, listen to music, play video games, play music, read, cook, whatever. So I kinda lost motivation, I stopped doing my homework, and I failed a couple classes. My parents pulled me out and put me back in homeschooling, which is working much better for me.

All in all, the public school system was a traumatizing and horrible environment. I feel sorry for any kids forced to spend time there.

I'm much happier now, homeschooled.

Many people claim homeschooling kids keeps them from making friends--I think putting kids in school gives them the false impression that all of their friends should be their age. It's much healthier to have friends from a wide range of ages. My best friends consist of 2 kids my age, a 35 year old guitarist, 2 old guys in their mid 50's that I play music with, a 20-something couple that lives down the street, and my wonderful girlfriend, who's 9 months younger than I am. Of all these, my very best friend would have to be my girlfriend, but aside from her, probably Brian, the 35 year old guitarist. I get along much better with him than I do with Robby, who's my own age and I met in school. He's the only person I met in school who I still hang out with.

School sucks.

Homeschool your kids.

I'm going to homeschool mine.

 

i wasnt homeschooled and im just graduating high school now. im quite certain that my life would have been a lot easier and i would have been much more successful academically if i had been homeschooled. when i was younger, i was in the gifted program in my school and my teachers and parents expected me to go on and do great things. well everyone else who was in the program is now getting schoarships and going off to pretigious universities but im just scraping by with tons off added stress... i was really lucky to have gradutated on time.
somewhere along the way, i just lost interest in school. like it was too easy and there were more interesting things to do.
i never belinged to cliques or had more than a few rather distant friends, i never got into high school culture, it was just so lame and fake. i was always ridiculed for being a "hippie" (it was how i was rasied). i passed most of my courses but never by much. i am going off to do what i love, but if i had been homeschool and allowed to learn at my own rate and do thing that actually interested my and not had to deal with all the high school bullshit i would be getting scholarships and such.
but as much as it sucked, i wouldnt change it cause it made me who i am. i learned a lot about life in school. like how to deal with people who abuse their authority, how to stand up for myself, and how to work the system for my own benefit.
i had to pull some mad shit to graduate this year. i never really did anything but tests and interesting projects through school. day to day assignments seemed so pointless when i understood what was going on from reading and the teachers lectures. my test scored were always at the top so thats what pulled me through lol
good for you for homeschooling. when i have kids they will definitly be homeschooled aswell.

 

I really admire all of you who were/are in the public school systems. My mom pulled me out after first grade because I was never taught how to read. (and roughly one year later, I had moved up to 3 nancy drew mysteries a day)

I can't imagine having been forced to learn under such a rigid schooling system. There were many things (especially in high school) that I refused to do because they logically had no connection to any real world knowledge.
And as to the whole "no friends" thing, I'm so glad that I didn't have to deal with all the typical high school bullshit. I experienced it enough through general interactions with people in activities that I was involved in; I can't imagine having that on a 24/7 basis. Being homeschool has let me work at the family business (my mom & grandmother are tax preparers so we are only operate JAN-APR) which in turn has given me priceless ACTUAL working world knowledge, plus I can relate to just about anyone.
I feel too, that it has strengthened me as a person because I was able to develop completely outside of the "normal" mindset. Wanderin_blues, everything being in school did for you, being homeschooled did for me. Which actually brings me to the most important point of homeschooling, it really is to each his own. My younger sister was homeschoooled until 5th grade; and through some extenuating circumstances, we had to put her in a private christian school. She is Madame Social Butterfly, and has actually improved her grades since she has been in school.
I still however am a wee bit biased towards homeschooling....

Wanderin_blues and Henry151, I'm really glad that you both have had things ultimately work out.....life's such a crazy trip.....

 

I just graduated from the public school system. Way back when I was in first and second grade, I was always the smartest kid in class. Somewhere along the line, I got bored I guess, stopped doing my homework. I always got As on tests and projects though. In High school I went through my rebellious phaze, I felt like a drone, just reciting information but not actually learning anything useful. By about Junior year I realized that my bad grades were going to prevent me from getting into a good college, so I stepped it up. Last year, through some extreme feat, i managed all As and Bs, and graduated with just a half credit over the requirements. I didn't get into a good college. I'm having to spend a year at community college first.

I wish my parents had homeschooled me, I think i would have gotten a lot more out of what I was learning. I also don't think I would have gone through the rebellion that I did. Most of it was me trying to fit in with the "bad" kids because they seemed so cool. Now, If I were homeschooled, I would never have had that urge. I also wouldn't have gone home crying every day in elementary and middle school because the kids picked on me so much.

I'm definately homeschooling my kids.

 

I was homeschooled and I absolutely hated it. I had no friends when I was growing up. I wasnt a hippie, and I didnt fit in with the 'unschool' crowd. I think one of the problems is parents using homeschooling as an excuse to shove the hippie lifestyle down their throats. Its kind of funny how hippies put on a big show about being open minded and whatnot, but when push comes to shove they try harder than anyone to make sure their kids dont have any of those 'shallow' friends, listen to 'superficial' music, etc.

Yeah, I was academically successfull and went on to a decently ranked college like the original poster. But I had no life. It wasnt worth it. How many homeschoolers do you know that have had girlfriends, socialize with other people their own age on a daily basis AND ARE SOCIALLY ACCEPTED, are in good physical shape, etc? I have never met an unschooler that could claim all of the above. Just sending your kid to some activity or whatever and claiming that counts as socialization is not adequate. They should actually be able to interact well with their peers and make friends who want to hang out with them outside of that activity.

I will probably hate my parents until the day I die for taking my youth away from me.

 

My daughter took the ACT in tenth grade this year. She scored higher than I did when I took it in eleventh grade, being public schooled. All the colleges she is interested in a a few not on her list want her to come "visit", this makes me feel like we are doing great academically.

She wants to take it again this year because she wants to score higher. I'm very confident that she will do so.

Socially my kids are both very busy and happy. However they rarely run into the sort of snobbery that they would have at public school. Yay!

If they do run into it and other negative social situations, they have shown they can more than handle it.

Life is good!

 

spectacular job Kore. feel proud ^.^ Thats wonderful news

 

LOL!

Both of my home schooling kids fit that description as do most of their friends.

 

Im homeschooled too,but I decided to because it was just not the place for me.

 

You shouldn't laugh at him. He's had it rough, as have had many homeschool kids. It just depends on the situation. Just because you did it right, doesn't mean all do.

My situation was a lot like his.

 

I'm laughing because I hear this over and over but rarely see it in real life and it is so far from what we do or ever have done.

Why are people so quick to take offense to any post here? I don't get it.

I'm NOT laughing at any particular poster.

However as I re read that post I have to wonder why that poster is hanging out at a hippie forum if they are so against the hippie life style that was forced down their throat.

 

I'm sorry. You didn't express the above in a way that I could be sure to understand you.

Did you mean to say:

"I'm homeschooled too. I decided to be homeschooled because public school was just not the place for me?"

That's what I'm assuming you meant. Please let me know if it is.