Pros and Cons of Homeschooling

So I’ve been homeschooled my entire life. I know lot of people that when I mention that I’m homeschooled, explain to me about why they’re jealous and how much they wish they were homeschooled.

Let me explain something to you, when you’re homeschooling you still have to work. It doesn’t mean sleeping in until 3pm and then sitting on the couch binge watching your favorite TV show. The second part of the word homeschool is SCHOOL.

Now if you want to be homeschooled or are a parent who wants to homechool here’s something I want you to consider.

I have been homeschooled my entire life which means limited social interaction. I have a friends from church but being homeschooled makes it very difficult to meet new people. I have been pretty shy my whole life and I honestly think it’s partially because I didn’t interact with people a lot. Of course different kids have different personalities, but if you’re homeschooling please come up with other social activities to do with your kids and other families with kids around their age.

For a while I was actually afraid to tell people I was homeschooled because it’s considered weird and it just wasn’t normal, honestly I still hate telling people I’m homeschooled. Also I have a weird fear of people especially teenagers, I often don’t want to do things with other teens because they act differently then I do. I’ve started doing other social activities weekly and I think it’s really helped me to overcome that fear but it’s still there.

I’m not saying that homeschooling is bad because there are definitely many good things about it and I’ll get to that after I explain a couple more things that I struggle with.

One is just being in a public place such as a store or riding a bus. I get nervous when people mention riding the bus or walking somewhere because I don’t think that I even no how to find my way around and I don’t have friends in my area to help me out. I also find that I get nervous checking out items at the store but that’s probably just my personality.

The last thing I would like to mention could honestly be both a good thing and a bad thing.

Age difference, one thing that I love about myself is the fact that I get along with people that are both younger and older than I am (mostly younger). I like that I can get along with kids that are much younger then me without getting annoyed or being rude. But most of my friends are younger then me making it difficult for me to be able to talk to them if I have a problem that can really be explained to a 16 year old girl.

Now what is good about homeschool? Well lots of things.

The assignments can be more exciting and fun and parents are able to help the student individually in a way that the student will understand.

Also, I do feel like I have a lot of self esteem even though I can be shy and have a lack of confidence I have high self esteem and don’t really care what the world thinks.

Another thing that is great about homeschool is that I have developed my own opinions without any influence from other students, teachers, or even curriculum. Also my faith has a huge part in this. As a homeschooled christian I have been able to grow in my faith and I haven’t been bullied for it (Yet) I think it’s important that I was able to develop my own opinion about God and the bible without having anybody discourage me from it.

I wrote this  in case anybody  wanted an opinion from a teen who has been homeschooled. It’s important to see it from both the parent and the students perspective because every child is different and even if you think everything is going well your child may have doubts that you never knew about.

If your child has concerns listen and think about it because I see why my parents had me homeschooled but I also wish that sometimes they would listen to my opinion and really understand what I was saying. Homeschooling is great but consider if that’s what’s best for you and your child.

I have to have social interaction or I get depressed if I don’t hang out with other teenagers. While I’m not sure being homeschooled was what was right for me and I feel like I missed out on a lot I understand why my parents made that decisions and now I don’t think I’d do well in public school.

So there’s my thoughts on homeschooling. I’ll probably write another post like this at some point.

Thanks for reading!

-Abby

 

 

 

Fear.

I haven’t been blogging much over the summer but I hope to get back into it over the school year.

A lot has happened this summer, lots of growing up and lots of changes. I think my entire perspective about myself and the world has changed. The things that I got to experience this summer have impacted my life in so many ways.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my faith and my life and I’m glad of the time I had to think because I learned more about myself and I discovered what I truly believe about the world. But what I thought about most was fear.

Fear is a huge part of life, it can stop us from trying new things. People repeat the same things when they learn that you’re too afraid to try something. They always say “God is in control,” or something along those lines. I trust God but it doesn’t make me any less afraid. Maybe it should but it doesn’t.

I’m not going to make a large list of everything that I’m afraid of. But one thing I’m not afraid of is being afraid. Fear is part of being human and sometimes we have no reason to be afraid, but a lot of the time it can’t be helped. I believe that God can protect us from harm but I have never really found comfort in prayer or when people say “God is in control,” I don’t know what your afraid of and I can’t tell you how not to be afraid. But I can tell you everyone is afraid of something and it only makes it worse if you’re ashamed of being afraid.