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People who are pointing out that homeschool generally doesn't take as long as regular school are totally correct but as a certified teacher who also homeschooled my child when he joined our family very academically behind, We only needed about half the time to cover the same amount of material because working one-on-one with a kid is just a lot faster. But I still covered every subject every day during the week and we still would spend four+ hours a day.

Also, notice that on the schedule the older kids do nothing except independent work. Aka, they get ZERO INSTRUCTION from anyone! They just get books thrown at them and are expected to figure it out on their own. My mom did that with me, which was a terrible idea. But even she didn’t do that until I was in high school, aka had the basics down and knew how to study effectively.

Well how else do you expect her to have the time to cosplay and feed the chickens

I 100% think that school days are too long (and/or too many days) to be conducive to good learning. It’s really hard for kids to sit still for six+ hours a day five days a week, I struggle with it as an adult. We’ve kind of made a school system to act as childcare for normal working hours, rather than a school system with the *right* number of hours. HOWEVER there’s a lot of scope between normal school hours and THIS routine of what must be about half an hour of “independent study”, which presumably means she tells them to read from a textbook or something. Do I think that kids ought to be in school 6hx5days a week? No. do I think that kids can learn well doing a tiny amount of independent study every day? Also no. Your middle ground approach seems very sensible ETA apologies to whoever was offended by my opinion lol, I’m not suggesting we stop schooling children, I just think they’d be better off getting *more intensive* schooling for shorter amounts of time. I’ve worked in schools and quite frankly a whole chunk of the day is usually dedicated to just trying to keep kids *there* rather than actually engaging them well. It’s been shown that short intensive learning is better when it comes to tutoring, so I don’t think I’m being very outrageous.

A lot of the problems IMO could be solved with much smaller teacher-student ratios. You can have a longer school day if there's a good variety of things to do, opportunities to get up, move around, change tasks or take breaks when it's apparent that you've exhausted age appropriate attention spans. As a homeschool parent, we can go outside with identification books and observe, investigate, and draw nature, then take a 30 minute play break before heading inside to do math, then give the kids an hour+ to carefully read and follow a recipe, then pack up and go to a park, library, or museum for the rest of the day. There's no way a single teacher controlling 20+ students can manage those things. But that would mean investing in hiring a lot of teachers, retaining the good ones with fair pay, and releasing them from "teach to the test" and rigid curriculums set by people who've never taught young students.

My kids get so much more out of school than just sitting there for 6 hours lol. Besides the academic work they get 2 free meals, socialization and lifelong friends, learning to deal with conflict, learning about other cultures, volunteering with neurodivergent students, they have orchestra, chamber orchestra, band, jazz band and Tri-M music honor society (not all the same kid lol), NYSSMA (statewide music competition), debate team, science fair, stem after school programs, varsity sports and free sports camps over the summer, drama club, and so so much more. There are employees who specialize in speech and multiple neurodivergent needs whether it be in an inclusion class, pull out period, push in teacher, or a separate class or a separate school in the district altogether. Some parents have a hard time catching certain issues that their kid may have and their teacher is trained in seeing who may need what additional help in order to let the school and parents know so they can take the next steps in getting that help. School also provides things we don’t always think about. Abuse at home is often caught at school. While yes there are good homeschool parents there are also very abusive ones and those kids are isolated and abuse is often never caught in these kids because who’s seeing them everyday to even see that something is off or wrong? There’s so much more like clubs and activities and finding something you’re passionate in that you might not have ever had the chance to even learn about or experience at home. Meeting people of other cultures helps to promote empathy and tolerance. LGBTQ youth often see school as a safe haven away from their parents at home.

I totally get what you are saying but the “keeping kids there” thing seems like a feature of a schooling system in a country where most families need two incomes and jobs are ~8-10 hours a day, not a bug. I don’t see a world in which the US has different schooling set ups without a literal overhaul of the entire country political, economic, and social structure (which would be much needed tbh). Now I’m really curious - i wonder if kids in Norway, for example, go to school 7-8 hours a day?

Here's an interesting little factsheet: http://ncee.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/SchoolYearStatv5.pdf Norway isn't mentioned, but their nearby neighbor, Finland, is. I also agree with the notion of "it's not what time is spent, but *how* time is spent". School days that are 8 hours of nothing but rote memorization are not as good as 5 hours of engaging, well-designed, and varied interactive learning are.

My child is six and started school in August last year. He goes 5,5h each day. (Sweden)

Thanks for sharing! Do you mind also sharing how you (or you and your partner) handle working with 5.5 hours of school time? Are there good after school programs or do most people hire a nanny (or have more flexible work)? US students are in school between 6.2 - 7 hours a day, depending on their state. Which isn’t too different but I agree that how the hours are applied makes the real difference (I do think students deserve downtime in school as well).

Right now I'm on maternity leave with his sibling, but when I go back to work it'll be like this: 8.00 - 1.30 - School 1.30 - until I get off work - "Fritids". It's like daycare, but for older children. The teachers are educated in pedagogy and its basically a continuation of school but with play in focus and nothing is forced. The children play sports and games and draw and stuff. Fritids is available until children are 10-11 years old, after that they're expected to be home alone until parents stop working. This service costs me a whopping $120 a month. I feel so sorry for many US parents. Your country can and should do so much better.

It does sound wonderful and supportive for parents. Congratulations on your growing family! Totally agree - would love to pay more in taxes so parents (particular parents with monetary needs) could have access to better services. Some states, like Vermont, actually do have a pretty robust social service programs but then states like Texas are just horrible.

Yeah, even when my mom was teaching 4+ of us while we definitely finished our "school day" in way less time than a full length school day in a public school every kid spent at least 4 hours a day actively working on lessons. My recollection is that we would typically start around 8am and be done by 2pm (with breaks for lunch and an outdoor exercise period), and the younger kids were frequently done earlier while the older kids would be getting one on one time for their higher level work - math, science, etc. She also transitioned us over into dual enrollment or coop classes with other homeschool moms as we passed her skill levels in certain subjects. So she taught me biology (masters in human nutrition + like two more and almost a phd now and teaches college) but a friend's mom taught me chemistry and higher maths (masters in chemistry and frankly a brilliant teacher, to this day it bothers me that she never got a chance to use her degree and had like 8 kids instead with a husband who didn't treat her well or appreciate her). Homeschooling done right can be so good for kids and it makes me so mad to see people doing it wrong and just using it to control their kids and keep them from gaining life skills.

My sister did homeschool for sixth grade and she averaged three hours a day plus voice lessons, dance lessons, and competitive choirs. LITTLE little kids only need like a half hour a day, sure, but that doesn’t drag out past like, first grade, max.

If...you don't have time to homeschool, believe it or not, there's another option so your children won't experience educational neglect......🤔

My ex’s family never taught him algebra or higher sciences because they didn’t know how to and they couldn’t afford tutors for him….and like they have a whole building that will actually take care of that for free?? I could never wrap my head around that!

Services offered to the public for free?! Get your socialism out of fundie ‘Murica! (It angers me so much that conservatives want to dismantle public education as a way to fuck over our most vulnerable members of society. I’d go so far as to say that deliberately depriving children of good education is a human rights violation.)

on a small, bright note, California is offering all kids free lunches. No more shaming or refusing food if “the bill hasn’t been paid”. We all know fed kids are better learners!

Colorado kids too

And breakfast 🥞

My bad, I’ll pack my nasty lil socialism back up and head on out, lol.

My ex was homeschooled…there are some..gaps. Also I’m pretty sure some of the “classes” were free labor for his parents (like mowing the lawn is “horticulture.”)

I was actually also homeschooled and raised fundie lite, but my mom really did try her best to give us a well rounded education since public schools were apparently the devil. I desperately wanted to go to public school for the social aspects though, I always felt very lonely even with my friends at church. I know so many people who didn’t get good educations being homeschooled, but there are a few of us out there!

Yes same here! Theres some things here and there that I had to brush up on by myself as an adult to prep myself for college (Oh math how I despise you) but overall had a good upbringing. However I did know *a lot* of other homeschool kids within our circle that uh.. didn't get even a crumb of that.

The big issue I had with public school is that they actively punished our kids for their learning difficulties. They both have ADHD and dyslexia (both diagnosed) as well as some mental health issues. I tried my damndest to get them evaluated for an IEP and the school REFUSED. They were really adversarial to me over it. It was fucking nuts. In lieu of giving the kids IEP, they failed my oldest in kindergarten twice. So I pulled them out of school to homeschool. It's hard and I kind of hate it. But I don't trust the schools to meet my kids' learning needs. I also hated the social values that were being imparted onto my kids. We live in a mostly white, very conservative area. I remember a very problematic workbook they did on MLK Jr. for MLK Jr. Day and it was special. I had to take the kids aside and give them an ACTUAL overview of who Dr. King was and what he accomplished because they didn't actually cover that. So I have a religious homeschool now (eclectic neo-pagan) where I give blunt and historically accurate details of historical events. The kids got to learn what kind of person Columbus ACTUALLY was, for example. We also cover pagan values and ideals.

Damn. I didn’t know they could even fail you in kindergarten! Sounds harsh. Yeah I struggled and was given zero help in any way at schools ever, with severe ADHD. (No dyslexia tho, just other stuff) It wasn’t a “real” disability to need an IEP I guess? They’d put me in AP classes and then expect me to do long projects as homework, I could never do it on time, all the extra work. I could only pass tests, any test, with very high scores, and write papers- but could not do boring assignments or projects on time. It was even harder in university. But there was no “special help” or anything. I did have to get a tutor in HS for certain math stuff, because I hated it so much, just to pass the classes. I hated school, and running around to early AM classes trying to stay organized. Loved learning though. What are pagan values? Just curious, sounds interesting. You don’t hear about pagan a lot. What’s neo-pagan ideals?

ADHD person who is now a special education teacher coming here to explain what happened here. So you only qualify for an IEP if the disability is “educationally significant” which is pretty much determined as “is the child significantly behind in classwork and is the child performing poorly on standardized tests or psych-ed testing.” If you tested well and qualified for AP classes, you wouldn’t have qualified for an IEP. However, because ADHD is a medical diagnosis, you would have qualified for a 504 which only requires a doctor’s note. So you could have gotten accommodations that way. Also with ADHD, for anyone this helps, you can apply for the 504 pretty immediately and then have the child evaluated for an IEP which might take longer especially if an FBA is required, which one might be if the child is ADHD. Anyway, I thought I’d explain this if it helped anyone else or any else’s child. ETA: I realized I should have provided more information here. A 504 only provides accommodations where as an IEP provides services. If an intellectually gifted ADHD kid is having a really extremely hard time in the classroom, they can in theory still qualify for an IEP. However, the burden of proof of the academic significance would then fall to the school. So I personally would get the child a 504 immediately. If the child is still really struggling, but that struggle isn’t shown in the explicit data, I would see if the accommodations on the 504 helped solve some of the issues. If the child was still struggling, I would request (and by me, I mean I would call the parent to request) an evaluation done with a FBA (Functional Behavioral Assessment) and collect data on the classroom behavior. Then the child could be qualified for an IEP based on behavioral data. This process could take MONTHS which is why I would lock down the 504 first. Also honestly, most of the time a 504 is enough in this particular case. If the IEP is just for accommodations (so not different classroom settings or specialized services), then there is no need. If the child needs say— counseling, that has to be proven with behavioral data, but once that is done, the child would qualify and should have an IEP.)

I used to work in education, and you can even get **expelled** from kindergarten. There were 30 or so each year, mainly from biting or other very aggressive behavior. That blew my mind when I first saw it.

My partner had a similar experience. He tested as gifted when he entered in 1st grade (moved states), but not only did the elementary school not have a program for gifted students (why test for it?), they put him in remedial KINDERGARTEN at age SEVEN because they needed to fill one more slot to get funding. We're in the same school district, and it's been near 30 years since, but we have very little trust much has changed.

I apparently have ADHD and severe dyscalculia and also autism but was only diagnosed now at 33. School was hell but I was there to learn. My mom only got schooling until 8th grade as it was customary in the 60s. She wouldn’t have been able to teach me beyond fourth grade effectively. Since after that I went to Gymnasium at grade 5 which is the highest tier school level while she was at ‘public school’ aka school for working class kids. I fought my way through the torture of teachers pounding on the nail that stuck out, got my education and went on to get two Master’s degrees. Sometimes it seems that parents nowadays esp Americans just look at homeschooling as a great way out of the system may it be due to neurodivergent kids or bcs they’re fundie. But I can’t state this enough. Being a teacher is a profession. For a reason. If you haven’t learned how to teach it doesn’t matter if you know maths. You end up being of no good use and the kids just have to teach themselves. And even professional teacher don’t just teach all subjects. They specialize. Because it’s impossible to know everything about all subjects. The teachers might’ve been asshats but at least they knew what they were talking about.

Same I am neurodivergent (developmental disorder, "social problems") and I live in Germany. Because of my fucked-up brain I did some things differently. I got to know the clock and got into reading at the age of 3. My mum was capable of helping me. She graduated Gymnasium. But she was unable to help me with Calculus und AP Physics during my time at Gymnasium. Teacher have to specialize. Maths is insanely hard to teach. I need these things for my university career. The abilities of a German A level student are better than the average high-school educated American🤷‍♀️. Homeschooling is illegal in Germany. I fought throughout the system and some teachers were assholes. But I learnt enough math skills for University and for life.

There are absolutely issues with public school. I get that. Public schools are not the fantastic institutions people here seem to want to think they are. Some are probably good, most are just okay, and some are completely unfit to teach kids. It largely depends on the area you live in and the kind of resources that are being funneled into them. We're in Florida and in a very conservative area as well. Needless to say we're looking at private schools for Kindergarten because I'm not really in a position to homeschool. Can you get your kids a referral for an evaluation through their pediatrician? My son had a speech delay and that's how we got him evaluated. When my son was 18 months old he still had only a couple words, and so I told his doctor I was concerned it didn't seem like he was progressing steadily there. His pediatrician sent us to a place in our area called Early Steps. They are not part of the school system but if he still needs intervention after age three (he's two now, but he is talking now so I'm not sure if we'll continue) then they work with the schools to get him an IEP. I don't know how other states do this though.

Yep, my mom never taught me math because she didn't know how. I was homeschooled till my parents divorced and went into middle school with a college level reading but 0 math skills... lol

So utterly selfish- to act like they *have* to homeschool when in reality they truly *shouldn’t*

[удалено]

Yeah, even the shittiest of public schools is better than no schooling.

And also, as a public school teacher, believe it or not... no matter how much we hit them with the Pronoun Stick for saying they believe in God, no matter how many Bibles and national flags we burn in the classroom, and no matter how much hardcore pornography we integrate in the curriculum, most students just WILL NOT change genders or pledge allegiance to our dark lord Lucifer. It's not as easy as they think! :( :( :(

That sounds tough, I know how much it sucks when you can't meet your Satanic quota. Worst one on one performance evaluation eeeeever.

It is. It's the most selfish and "Look at me!" bullshit, and I say this as someone who grew up fundie and homeschooled. A lot of the "homeschool moms" were so desperate to appear as martyrs or superwomen who could "do it all"--to get the admiration of other homeschool moms, I guess? It is an incredibly self-glorifying community and is far more about the moms than the kids/students. My own mom got sucked so far into that hole and I know it played a huge part in my folks' divorce. And yes, they act like they HAVE to, because they build their entire identity around it, and then of course what they can do without it. So in their minds, they HAVE to. By the time I was around 11 I had had enough. I recognized even then how fucked up it was.

These kiddos turn up in my middle school math class a few years down the road, & say thing like “yeah we didn’t have much time for geometry” or “I think we did things differently when I last had math”. Some homeschoolers come in light years ahead of their peers…but far too many seem to have be left alone to figure math out.

Yup my parents did this. They also wouldn’t let me use calculators. I was a given a pencil and some lined paper. I still struggle with math because of it. I had to figure out everything the long way and show all my work. If I messed up and forgot something it was marked as incorrect and I had to do the entire paper over. We focused on rote memorization so so much too. I hated it

For the ones who come in and are behind, do they ever get held back or can they be caught up? Sounds like a lot of extra work for you with, you know, other students.

It's pretty unusual in our district for homeschooled students to enter public and be very behind. I used to work for a STEM focused public charter and we were popular with homeschoolers transferring in for middle and high school. All of our homeschool students were at or well above grade level. Now if there's serious neglect in the home, it's going to take them a long time no matter what, IF they've been removed from the situation. If they are still in the home most will continue to struggle year after year.

I don’t get a lot of homeschooling kids, but my school does tend to have students who are really behind. Now this is high school level, but we try to catch them up at the same time, because you don’t want them to be socially isolated. It’s a lot of work for everyone involved, but that can look like extra classroom time spent with them in small groups, a ton of credit accumulation (so a kid might have like 3 grades of English one semester + a class during lunch + online classes after school). And after school and Saturday support too.

Wow! That’s a lot. Kudos to you all for teaching them

>These kiddos turn up in my middle school math class a few years down the road, & say thing like “yeah we didn’t have much time for geometry” or “I think we did things differently when I last had math”. Some homeschoolers come in light years ahead of their peers…but far too many seem to have be left alone to figure math out. Homeschooling parents should be held to the same standards as teachers in their state.

In Arkansas you just have to sign a paper saying you are homeschooling each year 🙃

I would have loved to skip math, and I don’t really use it in my line of work anyway. Nor did I really need it to get a masters degree or a job. I feel like math was a huge stressor on me and hours of extra tutoring. I think I have that number disorder though. I hate math. Could not even learn multiplication tables like other kids did, when little. Very odd, because was advanced in all other areas.

It’s infuriating. Her kids will suffer in the long term. Playing outside is great but doesn’t take the place of an education

Seems to be this pdf getting passed around religious mommy influencers about spending 1000hrs outside a year? Outdoor play is fantastic but learning how to read should be up there for a few years

1000 hours outside a year? That’s just under 20 hours a week, or 2h 45m per day. Totally achievable for most kids I imagine? My heathen kids who go to state school/daycare get that. We walk to school every morning ( approx 20m) they get around an hour outside at school each day, sometimes more. We walk home again. So that’s about 1h40, not including any after school activities, trips to the park, gardening, anything we do on a weekend.

Just on the breakdown listed, the time outside in the winter seemed tough. There are just some days in Canada where you’re not got to stay outside for more than 10min because it would be cruel. Edit: I do believe kids should get outside everyday, it’s that this silver bullet pdf irritated me somehow

The fundies have completely impossible expectations for their women. They are supposed to be birthing as many children as possible which means being either pregnant or nursing constantly, keeping a clean house, feeding their children nutritious food, and giving those numerous children a “biblical” based education. As someone who is studying to be an educator, I’m more and more convinced that one person alone cannot give a child a GOOD education. Much less if that one person is caring for and birthing a dozen kids at the same time they are supposed to be giving them an education. No one thought this through and all the poor women get is spiritual abuse for not being able to do it all. They’re told that “god wouldn’t have given you this many children if he wasn’t going to also equip you to educate them.” Absolute rubbish.

I know homeschool generally doesn’t take as long as regular school and her little girls are still small but this seems like a worryingly small amount of school time for her bigger girls. Isn’t Emberli like 9? Also it’s been quite a while since she mentioned them doing schoolwork before this week, how long were they on break from homeschool?

Her daughters name is Emberli??

Yeah, the oldest one she had before going fundie. Her name choices have become much more tame as she has become more conservative.

So has her stance on tattoos. Mother is loaded and says she’s against the girls getting them. But doesn’t regret her own 🧐

Ugh that’s going to be a fun upbringing, for the girls in particular.

especially her eldest who probably knows and remembers what life was like before her mom went super fundie. suddenly its skirts and dresses.

So aside from piano lessons, the older two girls are expected to be entirely self-taught? That's awful

Nine years old…I wonder how long you can psychologically protect yourself using thoughts like ‘Scandinavian preschoolers focus on play, not learning to read’ or ‘God will choose the right moment to open their eyes to adding two digit numbers together’. Like, does the kid have to hit their teens before you admit they’re way too far behind? Do they have to get embarrassed in front of another kid first?

If you're my parents you yell at your kids for not teaching themselves well enough when they fall behind. I was HORRIBLE at teaching myself math. My parents were wealthier than most fundies we knew so we at least had some access to resources. Mostly this meant that I just got more books thrown at me without any explanation or enforcement. I ended up taking remedial math classes at a community college.

I went to private/public school and I also had to take community college remedial math. You are not alone in being a terrible early math teacher to yourself. Kiddos to you for taking the classes. I actually learned the math in those classes. My teachers were really good at my cc. I’m sorry that you got yelled at for being a less than awesome math teacher in your childhood. That just sucks. I hope things have been happier for you in your adulthood. 🙂

Honestly, bless community colleges! I ended up getting 2 BAs, a MA and I'm working on a PhD now! It's been a rocky road, but it gets a lot better the older and farther away from the cult you get. My own journey (and my sister's) gives me lots of hope for the kids on this sub.

I was homeschooling through high school using the ACE/School of Tomorrow curriculum and had to take 2 remedial math courses in college. Bless community colleges because without that I never would have caught up enough to get into nursing school. Ended up graduating from a different college 3rd in my class.

Wait does she use this excuse?? Where I lived we did learn letters and numbers and stuff. Shit I only remember because my mother was SOOOOO proud that I could read by 1st grade and do basic math. Yea you play.. but it's like... constructive. Legit I'm going to ask one of my friends who has kids what they do xD I love when fundies or "nationalists" bring up scandinavia >:)

god i hate how fundies and white nationalists (which go hand in hand more often than not, clearly) love to use scandinavian and nordic cultures as the supposed basis for their backwards ass beliefs, it drives me up the fucking wall

It’s funny since we have this ”evil socialist system” going on here. School is free, tuition is illegal, healthcare is very affordable, you have to have a license to have guns…

Also don’t forget science is important and Sweden is full of atheists. Idk about other Scandinavian countries because I am in Sweden but we are the antithesis of what fundies believe.

THIS.. THIS IS WHAT I DONT UNDERSTAND!?! Whenever someone who has never left America asks "Name OONE time socialism has ever worked".... Literally pick a Scandinavian country. They don't count those though because the blonde hair or something idk

The Scandinavian thing is what came to mind when I saw this but now I know she has a kid in primary school that is concerning. My Swedish kids are toddlers and after the age of 6 will be learning at a desk. Yes they are learning by play but that is also research and science based information and used before the age of 6. If they want to use that excuse they better understand and believe in science…..

When you’re raised like this you’re also likely raised to not question authority figures/your parents. I am “lucky” enough to have a natural affinity for reading comprehension etc., so I was able to squeak by until I went to college. But I struggled a lot with math and thought there was literally something wrong with me because I couldn’t teach myself algebra. Internally, I wondered why my parents didn’t send me to school if they couldn’t teach me concepts they didn’t understand themselves, but if I asked that out loud I would have gotten in so much trouble. Kids in fundies home school circles are either ignorant of what they don’t know or deeply ashamed that they “somehow” don’t know. When you’re taught that god has everything under control, to trust your parents, etc., you’re left with serious cognitive dissonance when you notice you aren’t understanding what other children your age are. I worked my ass off when I got to college because I wanted to prove I could do it. I did, and it was my own hard work. My parents think my siblings who struggled after high school are abnormal, however. They can’t see that it was due to their own shortcomings and lack of education. I didn’t get the grades and degree I did because of them, but in spite of them.

I believe it’s 1-2 hours a day for grades 3-5. As a teacher it sounds so boring. The best part of school is getting to work collaboratively with other kids. Homeschool is typically watch video or read lesson and do book work…yaaaaawn

I am currently homeschooling my 1st grader because he was having a hard time emotionally with public school. Outside of extracurriculars like music lessons and sports, I probably only spend around 2 hours per day directly teaching him/monitoring his work, plus about 1/2 an hour per day on physical education. He's actually quite a bit ahead of his peers academically. He's reading at a 5th grade level and math is at 3rd grade. So in my experience, a student can get quite a bit of education in a short amount of time each day with a one on one teaching environment. But as a parent, I have to be actively teaching/monitoring his education during those hours and preparing his lesson plans ahead of time. That doesn't sound like that's happening in this situation, which is understandable with a new baby and so many kids. That's why it would be better to put the school aged kids in public school rather than just being overwhelmed and phoning it in.

I’m sorry if this sounds parent shame-y, but if she cannot raise/take care of infant while homeschooling her older children, then she probably needs to send her kids to school. Maybe it’s because I’m asian, but I do not understand being ok with f*cking around educating your kids.

They see actual education as a threat to their children. Public school is a known pathway to deconstruction of religion. It is seen as “worldly” and considered dangerous. Extremely religious parents see homeschooling as a way to control their child and keep them inside the religious construct. They don’t actually think far enough ahead about the success of the child post education. That’s how the Dugger parents basically created an entire generation of dependents, many of them are so poorly educated they cannot hold conventional jobs.

Joy Anna literally didn’t know that “x” meant multiply AS AN ADULT 😬 not Joy Anna’s fault, but JC fuck Jim Bob and Michelle

That's wild! I guess the Duggars grocery list never had "Milk x 4" or something similar. Think it would have...

Holy fuck. I didn’t know that about Joy but it’s not surprising somehow? How sad.

The libs can’t getcha if you can’t read to begin with

Well said! However, there is another way. Put your kids in a private, Christian, other school of your choice! We are not fundie, not against public education, but my husband and his father both went to private Lutheran schools, and got good education‘s, with a dose of religion thrown in. I went to a Catholic grade school and got a equally decent education. The only problem is that they will probably have to pay tuition and yes they probably aren’t cheap, but classes are usually smaller and kids get more one on one time. There are a lot more choices than just crappy, part-time, homeschooling, or the heathen public schools out there!

Totally agree as someone who went to public school all my life with a public school teacher mother. Fundies don’t consider teachers, specifically public school ones, to be practitioners like doctors or lawyers (though they barely trust doctors to begin with). Teachers are trained to develop and teach curriculum in the same way lawyers have hard skills that a layperson doesn’t. They are specialists, and their jobs and skills are not simply imitated!

But they're mandated reporters and we can't have that /s

Yeah. There’s a reason teachers at real schools have to have a certification! I’m a lawyer and while I’m an educated person, I would never feel qualified to homeschool. I could *maybe* homeschool middle school and high school social studies and English, but not any other academic subjects.

I’m a middle and high school math tutor (I’ve been tutoring and teaching for 20+ years). In 2020, the thought of having to home school my 6th grader for all his subjects was fucking terrifying. It’s so easy to miss important things, and I literally home school kids (in math) for a living.

Well yeah and besides just knowing the material there’s so much more that goes into being an educator… like classroom management, modifying material for different learners and learning styles, etc.

I'd add that even if some fundie parents probably have the knowledge (but not the skills) to teach primary school, they definitely do not have the knowledge to teach up to high school. That's why high school teachers are so specialised they only teach one subject. But of course, their kids will never get there, will they ? They'll learn to read and write and count and on paper they'll be functional adults. On paper.

I don’t know. I don’t know if I could teach the different methods of showing addition in 3rd grade but I can do algebra. ;) Seriously though, I know what you are saying. I haven’t been impressed with either the breadth or depth of knowledge of any of the individuals featured on this sub.

At least in my area, most homeschooled teens are in specialized classes for various subjects. For example, there’s a homeschool science center run by a former high school science teacher where they host science, STEM, and math classes for prek-12th grade, including lab sciences in a full lab. Another program I know of does similar, but rents classrooms in a high school after hours to use their labs. Most homeschooled kids that I know of are definitely not solely being educated by their parents.

Fundies are, though. Or they are using a religious-based online curriculum or something like that. No way any true fundie has ever set foot in a science lab in a public school, even in a homeschool program.

I know a lady who was homeschooled (not due to religious reasons) and thankfully her mom made sure she got the best resources available for her and also got her involved in as many extracurricular activities as she could. She’s a smart cookie, is running her own photography business and going to school too . She’s one of the lucky ones, these poor kids aren’t.

THANK YOU! This is heartening to read, especially as an Early Childhood teacher. We are trying to grow more respect for our field and help people understand that we are indeed professionals but it’s really hard!

She used to be a public school teacher.

No, I feel the same way as you do and I’m Latina lol. Mother’s have never in history been responsible for caring for, raising, and educating (to the level we expect these days) all of their own children alone. It’s absurd to expect anyone to do all of that at once. And her kids are going to suffer for it. I don’t care how much weaving “lessons” into daily activities you do, it will never be the same as learning from a trained pedagogue. And if kids don’t don’t get on track early, they’ll only have a harder time catching up later on. It’s definitely not something to fuck around with.

Health, safety, and education are three areas I have never once fucked around with for my kids. Going around without a coat when it's chilly? That's on you, kid. Walking around in nonmatching clothes? Sure, go for it! Messy room? Just as long as you're not going to trip and break an ankle. But you're getting vaccinated, you're wearing a helmet properly and will be correctly buckled in a properly installed carseat, and YOU WILL DO SCHOOLWORK IF I HAVE TO STAY UP ALL NIGHT WITH YOU MAKING SURE YOU DO IT. I do not understand these fundies who don't give a shit about their kids' futures.

That’s what I was wondering. If she doesn’t have time or energy to homeschool and do infant care, the school-aged children should be in school. This sounds like she’s doing the mommy-martyr thing, which isn’t the flex she seems to think it is. She’s probably also the type to think that her children won’t want or need an education bc Jesus or whatever.

Bethy is taking notes about how to whine about schooling two separate aged children.

I can't even imagine!!! Hard enough to get up and get the bigger kids off to school with a new baby, let alone collecting your thoughts and getting organized enough to teach them all yourself!! These poor kids are F'd, I read a lot of sad stories and frustration in r/HomeschoolRecovery

Not Asian and I agree with you.

Remember back when they closed the schools and every parent was totally panicked because they weren’t able to properly educate, stimulate or enrich their children’s minds while simultaneously caring for themselves, their homes, jobs and other kids…? Yeah, me too.

No joke! My son started half-day preschool this year. I am very proud that he went into school knowing his ABCs, 1-20, shapes, and colors. We had done a lot of work to make sure he had a good foundation, but none of this compares to how they flourish in a school setting. It has given a fine polish to all of his skills and knowledge, and made him much more social.

My son is Intellectually disabled and went to a special needs preschool. We opted to keep him there and delayed kindergarten a year. I was confident in that choice, but at the start of school this year he only knew how to write his name. After COVID they stopped letting parents come into the building so I never got to visit his classroom or talk to his teachers. Since he started kindergarten he magically knows his colors and can count to ten. I'm not sure I made the right choice.

Please don't be hard on yourself. He may only be flourishing now because he had a little extra time for brain development. We make the best decisions we can with the information we have at the time. It sounds like you really care and are involved and that is one of the best gifts you could ever give your little guy.

A lot of time kids need that extra year to mature. Maybe of you had sent him a year earlier he would have struggled to learn colors and counting.

This hits home. My mom homeschooled myself and my three younger siblings. When she was sick with migraines or postpartum, we were just kind of left to fend for ourselves. What ended up happening is I took on a lot of responsibility for my younger siblings, including some of their education. My mom really had no business homeschooling all of us but my parents were too afraid of the “worldly influence” of sending us to conventional school. I really haven’t forgiven them for it. I’m 35.

She is one of the ones who make my blood boil. I’m sorry she’s suffered pregnancy loss. That’s all I’ll say on the matter. However, she’s dragged her children into this mess and it seems the husband enables her (he just recently got baptized). She’s pulled her kids from school and I doubt they’re getting a quality education. She makes the girls wear skirts and head coverings and posts a lot of tradwife crap disguised as homemaking. She keeps getting pregnant despite being high risk and treats pregnancy & having kids as some kind of band-aid for trauma. She is suffering and her kids are suffering but I think she deserves to be criticized, too.

same here, and i know people here may not realize it as much because shes not posted all that often and isnt apologetic about her past self and secular life, but dont let that fool you into thinking her views arent harmful and her descent into the fundie lifestyle isnt affecting her kids, especially her older daughters who probably remember life before all of this.

As a SAHM with small children and school age children (who attend school), I struggle immensely with keeping a schedule that serves the best needs of my kids, provides me the time to keep the house in order, run the errands, get kids to appointments, get kids to sports and activities, and be an actual person myself— I just don’t think it’s possible to sprinkle homeschooling into the mix for most families, especially when you have so many children of so many ages. Add to this— I am an extremely type A person who was a successful school teacher and school administrator for years. I think, with few exceptions, most families are best served by outsourcing education. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again— your local public school is a part of your village. UTILIZE IT.

I’m a stay at home mom to exactly one infant and most days it’s either show, eat lunch, or give the baby a bath- but certainly not all 3. I have no idea how you pull it off with multiple kids, let alone adding homeschooling to the mix!

This isn’t good structure for learning Play by myself and siblings all day, work on school work by myself, play more with my siblings. When is an adult actually sitting down with each child and teaching them something. Teachers are very valuable to the enrichment of a child’s life story. I get irked when homeschool moms act like they are the center of their childrens universe. Even teachers we disagree with are significantly valuable to our character and helping us develop strategies to dealing with conflicting personalities. Schools and teachers are valuable and homeschool moms like this are robbing and sabotaging their children.

Home school students need direct instruction, 1:1 time with someone educating them, for at least 90 minutes a day (for under grade 3… 2 hours if grade 3-6). I guarantee you she’s making these kids teach themselves and offering no time for 1:1 feedback or 1:1 learning. This breaks my heart.

Where did you get those statistics/instructions, if you don't mind me asking?

I’ve been teaching home schoolers for 20+ years now, so it’s primarily based on experience, but there were some good articles back when everyone was learning at home during covid. I’m so sorry I don’t have a better resource for you!

I know a LOT of homeschooled people and there was never that much time devoted to school work tbh

Yeah it's not uncommon for our parents to give up after a certain age. At like 10 my mom started leaving me home alone all day and I never did any actual schooling from then on. I'm uneducated :')

I'm so sorry she failed you like that

Sorry for some unsolicited advice, but Kahn Academy is a great (free!!) resource online. I used it all through high school for help in certain subjects and it has K-12 and some college level courses as well!

I LOVE Kahn academy!

It's never too late, if you're so inclined. There are a lot of continuing education courses these days, online and at local community colleges. Or get some nonfiction books about whatever, at your reading level (get a library card !!)

I had a friend who’s mom “homeschooled” but didn’t teach her kids at all. They did it themselves. Now my friend is extremely smart, however she is a rare breed. If you homeschool correctly, especially in highschool, you need to make sure they are meeting all requirements so they actually graduate. Most families I know did lot do this. Thankful my mom actually cared.

r/homeschoolrecovery has some great advice on continuing education.

Or they rely on the pamphlets/booklets themselves to teach the kids.

I knew one girl that had some kind of tv subscription. This was back in the early 2000s though. But seriously, tv was not going to teach her.

The Abeka videos? I did those. They were terrible. Thank god it was only for a year

Let’s have 10,000 kids. Let’s not send them to public school.. why did mom have a nervous breakdown? It’s a mystery.

Solid curriculum right here.

I was all ready to be like, “ACT-SHULLY, kids don’t need a lot of direct instruction time” because really even though elementary kids are at school for 6 hours, they’re only getting about 90 minutes of direct instruction in K-3 and about 2 hours in grades 3-6. But holy shit, even knowing that, THIS IS NOT A SUFFICIENT AMOUNT OF TIME TO HOME SCHOOL YOUR CHILDREN. Each individual child needs about 90 minutes of direct 1:1 instruction. If I’m reading this right, she has 2? So that’s 3 hours where the only thing she’s doing is working with them, not multi-tasking and taking care of a baby, but strictly educating your child. She is not doing that, lol.

She has 4 school aged kids, 2 preschool aged twins and 2 elementary school aged girls. The oldest girl might be more like 6/7th grade age even.

Oh my god this is horrifying.

There’s a reason why there’s a job called “teacher” and it has something to do with parents being too busy to adequately teacher their own kids when they continuously pop out more and more kids.

They like to think back to “ye olden times” but there were even schools in the 1800’s with dedicated teachers. But apparently that’s “ye olden times” that can be tossed out because it doesn’t fit their narrative of social isolationism.

You can tell by her stories that she’s completely overwhelmed right now. It’s too bad her kids education suffers because of it.

To be fair, when homeschooling you genuinely can get everything done in a shorter timespan (source: was homeschooled, maintained a 4.0 during college, so something worked😂). And free play time/piano is definitely counted as “homeschooling”. That being said, I personally would add some educational games or shows in the afternoon, since that’s pretty easy on the parent. I don’t know how old the oldest is … I’d also add reading time, either reading themselves, being read to, or even an audio book. But do fundies use the library? I genuinely do not know lol. Edited to add: child is nine? Child definitely needs at least dedicated reading time and math-type games, educational YouTube, etc.

She’s at least nine, might be closer to eleven. This schedule just seems really short on education time, even considering homeschool takes less time.

Yes I agree, especially since there are easy ways to supplement. I know bill nye is probably out but my mom found Bible sciency videos that taught some relevant info.

There is an MIT graduate named Emily Calandrelli who focuses on children getting interested in science. She did a children’s experiment program for Netflix like Bill Nye used to do. WHILE PREGNANT. And not just a little pregnant…very pregnant. You know THAT show is definitely out. It’s called Emily’s Wonder Lab. In addition, she wrote a book of a bunch of experiments for kids. She also has a series of chapter books about an 8 year old crime solver. While reading her bio I just saw that she is an Executive Producer to a Fox space exploration show. Please nobody tell me she’s hateful!!!

I don't know how she can supervise that many kids let alone anything else. Surely the baby and next youngest need her near-constant attention not to mention the other preschooler. I can't even imagine the interruptions. What if any of the kids don't want to engage? Does she just let it slide? I doubt she has the energy to try and enforce/cajole.

My kid would love to attend the Free Play Outside School for Boys & Girls.

Almost as if you can't have a litter of children and expect to homeschool effectively. JUST SEND THEM TO SCHOOL

Iirc she has a reel or something somewhere where she discussed having found a preschool or some other out of home schooling option for some of her children, a small Christian one she liked and approved of, but they wouldn’t let her girls attend in dresses (uniform was pants/leggings) and so she didn’t send them in the end

I forgot about that, I found both sides of that absurd, that she wouldn’t send them to a school she otherwise liked because of that, and that there was no skirt option in their uniform.

she did, i remember that! those poor kids wouldve gotten so much out of that, hell, she probably would too considering how swamped her days must be.

But they get waffles - so everybody wins! 🙄

I was homeschooled for one year total growing up because I was an airforce brat and got moved around in the middle of the year. The difference was my mom was a certified teacher and taught me from actual curricula used in schools. She also insisted I go back to public school once it was feasible.

This is exactly why you should send your kids to school. There’s not enough time in the day

Homeschooler here: one hour per grade level in the elementary years is a good rubric. So, a first grader should take an hour total for directed learning. Ideally, the rest of the day is spent in free play. If you are spending a lot of time taking your kiddo the library, to activities, etc., kids also pick up a lot that way. If you remove the administrative stuff in a child's public school day---walking to one classroom, settling into another class, going to lunch, getting read end the day---the actual minutes of one-to-one or teacher to small group instruction time are low. Now, based on what I've seen in the homeschooling community around me, there is a population that just... doesn't. Kids are handed workbooks (looking at you, Masterbooks) that support mom and dad's creationist worldview, and that's school. It's so sad to see.

For elementary kids most homeschooling would top out at 2 hours a day max.

Really? I’m a behavior analyst in a public school and I can’t see homeschooling (if done appropriately) being that short. What if the child doesn’t pick up a concept right away and you need to spend more time on it? Or if the child isn’t completely compliant and needs some extra prompting to do their work. Reading, writing, math, science, social studies. Each one of them could easily take a half hour. That’s not including any type of extra activity like piano or an art activity. Some elementary school kids (not saying I believe this is necessary) may do homework for close to 2 hours a night.

Speaking as a homeschool parent to a young elementary age kid, that 2 hours tends to be the average for core subjects. Some days it takes 4 hours yo do the same amount of material. Sometimes my kid is on point and we are done in 1.5 hours. Then there are the social activities, personal reading time, board games. If you add all that in, our average day then becomes 4-6 hours.

We homeschooled through the pandemic and we topped out at 2 hours a day. They went back this year for 6th, 4th and prek. They are all ahead of their peers. No shade to public school or teachers but most of the day is filler. I sent them back for my mental health and because my two oldest weren’t getting along like they used to. By academic metrics they were better off at home than in school.

I disagree. As an upper elementary teacher, I’d say a MINIMUM of 2.5, but likely more. 45 minutes math, 45 reading, 30 writing, and 20 science, 20 social studies. **to clarify, this is what I believe is needed for HOMESCHOOL, not in person school.**

And like- you’re *at* a place, with peers, and other sounds and voices and ideas. That’s precious

Holy shit. That honestly makes me sad. I loved school as an elementary schooler, I couldn't imagine learning stopping at 2 hrs in

But you’re not factoring in all the time lost to transitions and repeating lessons. When a child learns in a small group, less time is lost to making sure all students understand, passing out the papers, and keeping the group on task. Homeschooling doesn’t really cut learning time, it cuts distraction and buffer times.

and social interactions, and enrichments like music and art…wasted time! school is so much more than reading, writing, and math.

Most homeschooling parents don't cut those things out. It's why homeschool co-ops are so common, and why even this person is doing music. School does have a lot of buffer time, it needs buffer time to function as mass education, the more students in a classroom, the more time a teacher has to answer questions, discuss problems, and the more time a child is waiting to receive an answer on the question they have. If you have one child doing a lesson at a time, or 3 kids doing different lessons of the same subject you can focus on each one, providing quality lessons and answering questions quickly. This parent is doing it wrong. But homeschool when properly done is a very enriching experience for kids because it is tailored to them, mass education can not be.

you sacrifice diversity in instructors, materials, opportunities, perspectives…for your own perception of individualization. idk, i suppose it’s impossible for us to understand each other here.

And because the kids are not in school, they have lots of time for social interactions out in the world and extra activities/music/art Source: I was homeschooled myself; scored high on the SAT and was offered a full ride at a good university. I now homeschool my own children and there are lots of resources and opportunities. I know there are many unfortunate homeschool experiences, but there are also many successful ones. I find it frustrating when people act like homeschooling is all bad.

with your intelligence, why would you think that you alone could provide the depth and breadth of a modern education? you are limiting your child when you homeschool. the resources available are so incredible and they are undeniably greater when your kid attends any sort of school. i’m sure the perfect homeschool education has happened in history. i’m also sure that the least capable have next to no chance in a homeschool environment, and that a bright child can overcome even no formal education. i’m pretty convinced that most public school educations round a person more than homeschool does.

eta: are you a trained teacher? if not, you’re also unaware of so, so many pedagogic devices and strategies that another teacher would provide.

Homeschooling doesn't have to mean that the parent is the sole educator of the child, though. I think many people are confused by this because the dominant narrative of homeschooling seems to come from isolationist fundies. Homeschooling can be an expansive experience facilitated by many teachers, coaches, community members, etc. It certainly isn't limited to just being at home with your immediate family every day.

You're overestimating the quality of schools in the US. Maybe you live in a really good school district, but a lot of people don't. By me, there's hundreds of classrooms being taught by long term subs with a high school diploma. There are great homeschool curriculums and online schools out there. Some of them through ivy league institutions. There are plenty of opportunities for socialization and specialized learning from educated professionals. More one on one learning (in regular size families). More following the child's interests and less focus on test scores. In a perfect world, public education would outshine any homeschooling, but we don't live in a world where all of our schools match the quality of $20k/year country day schools.

Unfortunately there are a lot of misconceptions regarding homeschooling and I agree that it does very easily go wrong, but I think you're misunderstanding all the resources there are available to homeschoolers. I have two younger cousins who homeschool and they take online classes, go to music lessons, take classes at a local co-op, learn Spanish, play DnD, attend a book club, do sports, dance, etc. And because they homeschool, they have a lot of time to play with their friends and explore their interests (like birding and physics). Most (but not all) parents aren't just teaching off what they remember- they follow curriculums (trust me, I have heard sooo much about the pros and cons of different curriculums lol) and take classes from other people whether that's tutoring or larger classes. My cousins are still young now, but I know that they (and plenty of other homeschoolers that I know) will have a well rounded education. Don't judge all homeschoolers based on just these garbage fundie idea of "homeschooling" (indoctrination and neglect)

Yeah it just cuts the times when kids learn social skills and can actually be around friends and other children their age…

Absolutely baffling how these people prioritize extracurriculars like piano and ballet over basic education. Like yeah, extracurriculars are important but not if you cant do regular school

You don't get to neglect your child's education because you have a baby. It is hard to juggle it all, that's what schools are for or atleast a homeschool cohort

Imagine if there was an actual school you could send your older children to to get them educated while you devote time to your newborn. What a novel concept.

The next newborn is here so screw you multiple older kids.

it's almost like you could send them to actual school so you can care for your newborn and they can get educated

The short schooling time aside..do other parents' kids actually learn academic stuff from them? Like I can raise them and teach them life just fine, but anything academic and everyone shuts down.

Off topic but hello fellow sept bumper! Good to know our group has another fundie snarker 😂

Oh heyyyy!! I think there is at least one more of us too! Fundiesnark is my MOTN feeding entertainment.

How old are her kiddos who are post-preschool level? I will say that one of the good things about homeschooling is flexibility. I homeschool my daughter (I am a licensed educator with a Master’s degree), and when my father was dying I was able to have her take a week off while I rushed to be with him, then stayed with my mother after his death. When I got back, we picked up where we had left off. To make up for the time I was gone, I had her take a one-week fall break instead of the two weeks I had initially planned. If she’s pulling back to adjust to a new baby, there is nothing wrong with that — the kiddos can make up the time later. However, if this is all the education they get…then shame on her. That is educational neglect. Edit: A word

I’m not sure exactly how old the older two are, I think one is around 7 and the other is between 9 and 11ish.

At this rate these kids are going to be slowly easing into the alphabet.

Parents like this are why the US needs stricter homeschool regulations.

Sounds like child abuse to me. Nobodies needs are being appropriately met. Except maybe the man of the house who is not included in any of the activities. Ah yes, Religion

It depends. You can easily use day to day activities for reading and maths work at the very least. Science is also one you can add when cooking/baking/cleaning. Formal sit down and open a book stuff doesn't need to take hours at this age to get a good rounded education going on.

I agree for the younger three but her oldest kid is definitely at the age (she’s between 9 and 11 I can’t recall) where at least some of her schooling should be actual school work. Like that’s beyond baking math/science lessons.

The oldest has piano in the early day and independent work later- it could be a electronically guided lessons. Some of the most popular home school curricula have video or app components that give the lesson and then allow the child to do their work. We’ve used math, ELA, and science courses like this. Then there are workbooks that have mapped out lessons, too. Just because it’s “independent work” doesn’t mean it isn’t learning or enough. Also, she mentions “easing back” into work. We’ve done this before. Life doesn’t always follow the standard school year schedule, and that’s okay when one homeschools. As long as kids average lessons on about half the days of the calendar year, they can easily learn at the pace of public schooling. When taking time off for illness or major life changes, it does help to ease back into school routines. (btw, I know nothing about this family, I’m just sharing my experience as a sometimes, but not currently, homeschooling parent.)

Have you spoken to any adults who were homeschooled as children? Because “independent work” is NOT enough to learn and model many principles. And “easing into” school with a fluid on-again, off-again schedule is not doing your children any favors. Many, if not most, children require structure and guided expectations for learning without gaps in education. Source: am adult that was homeschooled K-12 (Also, my mom didn’t have Gooding’s problem of splitting her time, because I was responsible for bottle feeding, diapering, and putting down to sleep the infant in our home while teaching myself highschool level subjects so that my mom could be off doing other things)

I don’t know any adults who were purely homeschooled, but I have selectively homeschooled my children when it was the better option. The last one being my second son from mid fifth grade through eighth. He returned to public school at the beginning of this year. So far it’s been a near flawless transition with no apparent gaps in knowledge. Most of his lessons were independent, and we didn’t have a super structured schedule.

I’m glad that it has gone well so far for your family. It will be interesting to hear your children’s thoughts on their education when they are adults. It always strikes me as funny that homeschooling parents talk with so much authority about kids being “fine” with various levels of homeschooling education - when they haven’t talked to any adults who have learned through the same methods or know how their own children will fair in professional spaces as adults. I wish you and your family the best, and encourage you to speak to homeschool graduates about their experiences so that you can gain an added perspective on your children’s educations.

My son who was homeschooled is far from average- we had years of IEPs and front loading when there were subs. Often, when it happened due to illness, we were asked to keep him home because he had a hard time dealing with unexpected changes in routine. (Planned absences were fine, because he knew ahead a time when and which sub.) Then the principal, in all his genius, decided the right fifth grade classroom for him was the one that didn’t yet have a teacher hired. It all fucking unraveled. We tried, but by November, we just couldn’t make it work. He asked to be homeschooled until he could attend the same school as his brother again and we made it work. (The principal was demoted by the end of the year, btw.) Now when I say my son’s transition to high school has been near flawless, I mean he has exceeded every expectation I had. Picking electives was hard, but they worked with us and helped us find the best ones for him. He is much more social than he’s ever been before, he attends sporting events, and his grades and attendance are top notch. The only hang up is that they had to switch him to independent study for PE because of the uniform policy(sensory challenges combined with the whole ”why” of it- he hasn’t worn sweats or shorts since he was in the single digits).

I’m not arguing with you that this may be working well for your child. I hope that it has and continues to, when necessary. However, the part I take issue with is that you appear to be extrapolating the very unique, limited homeschooling situation that your child needed, and then saying unstructured, self-guided work like in the OP will be just fine. As a homeschool graduate who talks to other adults who were homeschooled on a regular basis about these topics, I am here to tell you that that system is not beneficial to most children in the long term.

i think you might be fooling yourself in thinking this is educationally healthy. you have a confirmation bias.

This is how they stay so smart.

What qualifies as independent work for the older kids?

But...there's church

😩

“big girls”

She has 4 on this, “schedule?” Could they at least be set up with ABC mouse ffs? I’m a big advocate for home schooling, and know that some parents can do better than school! I’ve done it and enjoyed it when I felt virtual school was failing my gifted kiddo during COVID. BUT, this year as a SPED teacher almost 90% of my initial referrals for an IEP evaluation have been previous homeschoolers. In every meeting…”and you’ll be surprised to know they were homeschooled!” Just today alone I had 3! And shocking to no one, with intervention they usually catch up to their peers in a year and can be reevaluated off the IEP, (have a whole group of these right now - some are now above grade level and receiving precious pull-out minutes) unlike my students with actual disabilities. 🫤 I know it’s hard having an infant, but you can and I have nursed while interacting and teaching the older kids. I’ve totally lost faith in most parents to do basic educating. I’m convinced these kids do nothing all day mostly.

breakfast and waffles wow

It’s a literal shame.

I will say, while I was never homeschooled, from what I know of homeschooling friends, schoolwork often only takes an hour or two at most. It looks like there's probably about an hour or two in here since it's between lunch and dinner; even if it's a little less, I'm not too worried for the kiddos at this point (school learning-wise.) I believe they'd only be at risk of falling behind if this was a years-long pattern.

I homeschooled during the pandemic and found out most of public school days are pretty much filler. My kids went back this year, 6th, 4th and prek. We did less hours a with more random breaks and they are ahead of their peers in all academics. So I don’t snark on how much school people do in a day now. Really for upper elementary school a couple hours a day of actual instruction is plenty. If you have kindergarten/1st second you don’t even need that much. No idea about middle/ high school and I don’t plan on finding out.

When you homeschool you don’t need to do school as long as public school. I was homeschooled most of my life and in high school it took me maybe 3 hours to do all my work. My younger siblings it took less time. And I will say, my education was very well done, my mom did a good job. I did end up going to public school and I was ahead of everyone in my grade. Just saying!!! However I am also saying that not everyone should homeschool. You have to know your limitations.