Thoughts on Homeschooling

When I first started out Junior High, I thought homeschooling was a great idea. I hated my first year of Junior High at Georgia Washington. I guess that's why I didn't even make it the whole year, because in the middle of my seventh grade year I transferred to LCA instead of homeschooling. I think homeschooling may be necessary for some people, but I wouldn't recommend a child to be homeschooled unless they absolutely need to be. I think homeschooling ruins a child's ability to communicate and develop social skills. It may hinder them from making friends, and make social activities awkward. Though this is not the case with all homeschoolers, it does have that affect on quite a bit of people. I have known a few people that were homeschooled. One guy that I know of has been homeschooled all his life, and he has no social skills at all what-so-ever. You can tell being out in public with people his age is excruciatingly painful and awkward. Now that he is starting his first year of college, making friends and socializing is not as easy for him as most. I also have a good friend that has been homeschooled for 2 years. This year she just recently started going back to a regular school, but things are not going too great. She is having problems with some guy at her school stalking her. He threatens her and her parents even had to file a restraining order on the guy. Her parents put her in homeschooling to avoid situations like that, and now she is going right back into them. I think homeschooling may be positive when it comes to wanting to protect your child, but not to completely shelter them. Overall, I don't think I would allow my kids to be homeschooled, unless they had some kind of disability where they absolutely needed to be in an environment such as homeschooling. I think going to a regular school is important for kids to learn how to develop social and communicative skills.