A lunch conversation on homeschooling

Today I went had lunch with a few friends.  One of them mentioned to the group that my wife and I homeschool our children.  One of the first questions was the classic “How do you socialize your children?”

I responded by pointing out that not all socialization in public schools was positive.  The group agreed.  One of them pointed out that every high school in the area seems to have trouble with drugs and gangs.  I shared some of the positive types of socialization our children do have, like singing with a choir at an old folk’s home every month, and weekly choir and band practices.  I stressed that one of the aspects important to me is that our children are very close to each other, even though they do have several friends from other homeschooling families and from church.

The next major question was how does Janine teach everything?  I explained that with young children it is best to only spend an hour or so a day.  Hours and hours a day of school doesn't help a five-year-old.  As our children get older they become more independent and self-driven.  We switch from the provider to a general contractor model.  Janine gives them a weekly schedule and they report on their progress.  (Our goal is they report at the end of each day, it works out to be just a couple times a week.)

They also asked what do we do about college?  I told them that our daughters start taking classes in the local junior colleges in their high school junior year as our state allows this.  And our oldest didn't have any trouble then switch to a full time basis junior college.

By the end of lunch one of the group said something like: “You know in many cases homeschooling may be the best choice.”

Yeah!

I do think that the more parents really know about homeschooling the more most of them would homeschool their children.