When did you start Homeschooling?

[ChayilWoman]

I know lots of families that HS, and all but one started out HSing from the beginning. It seems like on here a lot of families started out with public school and switched later on. I'm just curious how many of each, so I'm trying a poll. (I've never posted one of these before, so we'll see how it works.)

I'd also love to hear why you pulled your kids out of public school or why you chose to start at the Kindergarten level with HSing .

[NewWorldOrder]

I pulled my first child out of school to start homeschooling her, but my youngest has always homeschooled. She doesn't know anything else. :)

[topekaclark]

For us, our youngest daughter was struggling in school by 2nd grade, we were very frustrated with the school system. We pulled her in October of last year.

Our oldest daughter, 6th grade now, this is her first year of hs. We talked about it, I was worrying that as she got older she would fall away from us and make unwise decisions. Her selection of friends were not the best and she would come home crying because of she said, blah blah about me. She was an honor roll student not capable of doing 5th grade math and horrible spelling. I realized this after we started hs. Also after seeing how much our youngest dd improved academically, it made sense.

Now we do have a sophomore in public school.

We have a younger child, which will be homeschooled when it's time.

[wife]

Always did. My mom homeschooled me in high school and I loved it, so it was just something that I wanted to do

[MochaMel]

I've homeschooled for 7 years now.. I public schooled my oldest who did fall away from the family and made some unwise decisions in friends' etc. He also would have been homeschooled in 6th grade but he went ot live with his dad; and he is still struggling... My 13 year old i started thinking about HSing when he was in 1st grade and prayed about it all year; got information on it; and made the decision by February to pull him in June if things did not improve by the end of the year.. They got progressively worse; my son was failing, he wasn't able to read at all, (which i found out from his older brother not the school) they wouldn't test him, he had 3 teachers in one school year and the school would do nothing about the bullies... FYI: we had done private school the 1st year we were saved; but couldn't afford to keep doing that. So back to public school they went b/c i had never heard of homeschooling; and it was awful!

I absolutely hated sending them to school everyday that year and the year before; it was heart wrenching and i had never felt like that before.. I was saved when my oldest was 9, middle son was 4... So about 2 years into salvation God had already begun changing my heart towards Mothering, (that's kind of hard to explain via MB but it was awesome) studying His word and overall i feel like he used those 2 years to get a foundation set in HIM to be able to Mother better and homeschool....A simple explanation on the Mothering i was a good Mom in the world's eyes i suppose -- but my weekends were my time; and i went out almost every weekend. I did the typical PTA and all that other stuff; but it was still all about me i think..

When i was saved; God changed EVERYTHING in my heart towards being a Mom, teacher and wife.. My middle son had some learning disabilities and struggled in school ALOT! And he didn't fit the mold of other popular kids' i guess you could say.. He had withdrawl issues from being away from me, he was angry and acted out alot.. He was a VERY strong willed child anyway and he needed to be schooled at home. He explains to other people a similiar story on why he prefers homeschooling and only maybe wants to go to Highschool but really only if it's private school. He'll tell you he doesn't want to be like the kids' he sees around here; and what he has seen of his brother's attitudes. His bio dad hates that he's homeschooled but Jacob always sets him straight and doesn't like his dad interferring and so his bio dad leaves it alone most of the time. That is grace from God; b/c i know not all blended families are allowed the luxury of being able to homeschool b/c of the courts and the absent parent.

My other two 8 dd, and 7 ds have ALWAYS been homeschooled; we thought about putting them in this year b/c of the pregnancy and tried a sampling last year b/c dd was making me nervous she didn't want to read; and wasn't grasping it.. I was getting worried that with the problems with Jake's learning problems maybe it was me doing something wrong. We put her in a reading block for 2.5 hours a day for 3 wks. last year at the local public school. After much prayer we thought well it's not long and this will give us our answer on what to do next year. I might add hubby went along with me; but he didn't really feel it would be a good thing. He is VERY supportive of what we do at home..

It was not a good experience. She didn't really learn anything; She actually learned more at home; the school wanted me waiting for her in the office; didn't want me going to get her at the classroom after class... And the teacher's/office staff were always looking at us; judging us and overall making me very uncomfortable with their constant "suggestions" and overall looking at us strangely.. Hard to explain but it didn't feel right in my Spirit. My ds-7 also took a speech class during that time for his speech inpediment; and it was a disaster; he told me 3 wks. before it was to start this year; that his teacher made him feel bad about his talking.. She wasn't encouraging him; she was belittling him...

That was my answer from God; He wanted me to know for sure that everything was fine at home; she will get this reading in HER time.. And to get me to stop worrying he had to show me that way i suppose.. :) My DS-7 is even doing better with his speech problem with prayer, instead of classes.. And same with DD-8 reading.... :yeah Prayer, prayer, prayer has always answered all our not sure moments in this adventure! :)

I would never turn back now!! They are all very strong with God; and are very much family oriented; vs. peer oriented.... I don't see them behaving in ways that other kids' in the world do and i LOVE that. I am VERY thankful that God has allowed us the opportunity to school this way.. I VERY much enjoy having my kids' with me all day.. My in-laws think our kids' are weird; but you know what that's fine with me! They don't act like the world they must see Jesus in them and it annoys them that our kids' arent' acting our like their cousins.. They actually think my oldest is normal b/c he's doing things the hard way.. :(

It is a joy even on the hard days!

Sorry this is so long; it's along testimony though.. :)

Blessings,
Mel

[LupusMommyto5]

We started Sept 2007.

[farmgirl]

We pulled my daughter out after two weeks of kindergarten this fall. We let her go to public school because she had looked forward to it so much but when she discovered it was pretty tiring and boring she wanted to stay home. She is reading at a third grade level and math at a first grade level and is so eager to learn it is really easy.
We just pulled my 8 year old son out because the teacher wanted him to go on meds for ADD. He's not disruptive or misbehaving, he just daydreams and has a hard time focusing. That's not a huge problem at home because of the excellent student teacher ratio! He's already improving at reading!

[Reason&Hope]

When my oldest was about to go into Kindergarten, I prayed for direction. The elementary school one block away had an open house. When I asked the teacher about how they taught reading, she told me "whole language" and that was that. My son already knew how to read - through phonics.

He's now a freshman in high school. They've been in co-op classes, but never public schools.

[redeemed]

When my oldest was about to go into Kindergarten, I prayed for direction. The elementary school one block away had an open house. When I asked the teacher about how they taught reading, she told me "whole language" and that was that. My son already knew how to read - through phonics.

He's now a freshman in high school. They've been in co-op classes, but never public schools.

What is "whole language"?

[Cookies4me]

I could qualify for both. My two older ones I took out of private school. My daughter was just starting 2nd grade and my son was in K.

My younger one has never been inside a class room.

The current grades they are in is 6th, 4th and, 3rd.