I was home schooled due to slipping grades for about two years from 7th to 9th grade. I got to learn about what I wanted, but ultimately I needed a more structured environment. Undoubtedly, some kids thrive in a home-school environment whilst others don't. Granted, mine was not a Christian home-school.

It's hard to put together a football team.

The only example I’ve seen personally is my brother. He was deep into evangelical religion, at one point forming his own church with 5 other families. They followed the ‘quiverful’ philosophy, among others. They home schooled all 5, and the youngest is still being home schooled. The only exception was during the years he had glioblastoma(died in 2016), the two girls finished high school(grades 11-12) at a prestigious local Xtian academy. My brother did relax his views and began attending a reformed Presbyterian Church, whatever that is(after 5 years in his private cult).
The curriculum is Xtian and Bible based. After my first trip to Egypt, I was invited as a guest speaker. Lol, I was never invited back.

I have seen it more common among religious people in Texas and guessed it must be to avoid learning about the evolution, climate change, and more of science. It must be coming out the Church advice that keep your children close to God, teach what God said in the Bible. They think the modern education corrupts minds, allows you to question God.

It has always been the design of religions to have lots of babies (Catholic, Muslim) and brainwash the young so we could increase our dominance in the world. Millions make a living just on religion. If that changes, it is a huge threat to their existence.

I think that education is about indoctrination and programming of children to become obedient workers for the power elites who do not send their kids to government schools and do not do home schooling. Home schooling is largely about religious types wanting more control over the indoctrination and programming of their children to conform to religious doctrine but there are some parents that want to keep their kids from getting programmed as obedient workers in the public system and cannot afford the private school system and I understand the need for this if the parents are capable of providing an effective education for their kids.

I don't have a problem with it if the child is getting a proper education.

The thing with Christian schools is that they too often deny real science and teach their Christianized version of history. Their goal is to keep their kids indoctrinated, not to educate them.

There are also home-schoolers on the left who teach their kids a bunch of nonsense.

It is one way to protect the children from critical thinking.

These days homeschooling is a decent option, if one or both parents have the time to put into it. The usual complaint I hear is about the socialization of the children, but that's really a non-issue if the parents let their kids be active in the local homeschooling organizations - there are many of them these days. And the materials and tools are finally topnotch - better, if not at least comparable to public education.

The focus of any schooling effort should be on education; I'm of the belief that all the other social nonsense that occurs in public school can often be a distraction away from learning. It may have some utility for many children, but nothing that can't be experienced in other ways and means. This opinion comes from someone lucky enough to have experienced both options during adolescence.

i think its just down to your situation but probably the best way to know they are getting schooled. the down side is not mixing with enough other children i guess.

This is not a simple yes/no situation. The reasons for homeschooling vary, I had a friend who was homeschooled due to medical issues. She could not attend as she had to have many surgeries and would at times have open wounds on her legs. She was in primary school and so her parents taught her but she still had contact with her peers as long as none of them had any kind of infection. Another was traveling with her parents they were both teachers, one in English/Science the other Maths/Languages. There are those that do it to prevent interactions with people and hence ideas they do not like. If those ideas are never presented nor talked about it means a massive deficient in the students education. If there is no social interaction then it reduces their ability to engage with a wide variety of people. I think it would be better if schools opened up a bit more and allowed a more flexible learning environment. However, that requires governments to spend money on education and not many of them are willing to do that. Sending you child to a cult based school is just the same as home schooling because of your beliefs they are not getting a wide cross section just those that support the cult's view.

I think the reason for it, the quality of the curriculum the students are learning, the skills of the people who are guiding them all come into play.

I think a lot of homeschooling is done out of fear and mistrust of society and often results in maladjusted kids. However, homeschool can be done wisely by the parents and in that case, the results are usually far superior to public schooling, in education and in social skills.

The state of our education system leaves a lot to be desired and I don't blame anyone for mistrusting it. I think our kids' education would be vastly improved by implementing a program I heard about in another country where the government money for education follows the kids. You can choose whatever school you want and the government pays that school for your kid's education. It introduces competition back into the schooling system without eliminating government support. I think that would prompt much better results than what we see right now from our schools.

It is not so good for developing social skills. We know 99% of our lives relly on the way we interact with others. The same educational skill can be achieved with just some parental interaction in conjunction with the school curriculum.

It's a mistake, used for secular upbringing unless mother is a teacher with special circumstances

I was married to a schoolteacher. Our daughter attended public schools. For high school, we changed her to a better school district than where he worked.

Tennis Team

Like her father, Claire played varsity doubles tennis for four years. Claire and her dad have plaques in the high school gym 40 years apart. Claire thrived playing tennis. Her dad started her at age three, hitting balloons with a small racquet.

Music Programs

When Claire played violin in elementary school, each Monday, I volunteered for the school Strings Program. Holding the starting note in my head, I tuned 51 cellos, violas and violins over the chattering of excited kids. Fixed broken frets and strings. Other volunteers waited while perfectionist director Betty and I tuned.

Every once in a while, I returned for the starting note. "Why is Kathleen the only volunteer who gets to tune?" an aggravated volunteer asked.

"Because Kathleen has perfect pitch," Betty shot back. She was wrong. I can mentally hold a note and hear perfect fifths. As a flute player, this is innate. It's not perfect pitch.

For her fourth birthday cake, Claire asked for a tennis racket with Mickey Mouse on top. I made it from scratch, of course. An artist, Terry drew the strings.

I had, and still have some reservations about it. But my own (Christian) Sister homeschooled her three boys, and they all excelled in college, and turned into pretty cool young men - now all married with kids (of course !). Like many things though, this can be overdone, and children can be heavily indoctrinated and kept from functioning well in the real world.

My thoughts are that school has become a place to propagandize children into being well-behaved, working adults who don't ask many questions. It is a place to train you for the workforce, make you fit in and be law abiding. My feeling is that there is a greater opportunity for a child who is home schooled but only if the person doing the teaching has a well rounded education themselves and can fill in the areas where the public schools fail. One of the main areas is our history. Most of us have learned what we thought was history but was actually a story about history that was designed to get us to think in a certain way. The bulk of historical books used in the classroom are not accurate and leave out everything that is unseemly.

As far as the Christian home schooling programs go, I am concerned that they are propagandizing religion to children who are not developed enough to understand the concepts being presented while shorting science and history. In fact, some of the home schooling teachers present things that are downright unreal.

many of my non-christian friends homeschool....

It is a lot easier in today’s world to home school. I’m not a fan, but it has advantages for some kids.
I may home school my youngest due to severe bullying at her school.

if it can be done right, if it’s what’s best for the child, it’s a great thing. as long as the parents prioritize the child’s needs, education, and socialization. i was homeschooled by parents who prioritized religion, so i still wince when i hear the word, but i know it can be very useful.

I'm reading a lot of the pros and cons here and glad to see them. It means I can adjust my thinking on the subject. The big reason I need to do so is that in my area home schooling is done to prevent religious families from critical thinking. This way the kids will believe in creation. It also shows that they do not have fit teachers for the needed subjects.

I am not in favor of home schooling, at all.
I don't believe it should be permitted, except for in real PROVABLE medical cases.
It most definitely shouldn't be allowed for religious reasons. Ever.

I have a niece who teaches at a school which is run by an evangelistic group and I have a friend on Facebook who has home-schooled his two sons. He is a creationist who believes the Earth is 7000 years old. Both support right wing politicians simply because of their views on homosexuality and abortion etc., and don't really care about social programs or environmental issues. If the result of the education given their children is more and more people with views like them, such education is a very bad thing. What I find hopeful though, is that there seems to be more emphasis by these people on the right to home-school and for separate schools by religious groups. This indicates to me, that they feel the need to withdraw their children from public education because society in general is becoming more and more secular, which is a good thing.

I think educating children is not just about acquiring knowledge, but giving them life and social skills too. I believe that no matter how good the parents are at home schooling, children need the interaction of other children and the ability to learn how relationships work outside of the family environment. The ability to bond with other children, sometimes of very different family makeup and background is invaluable. It’s also important than they learn the discipline of formally learning in a communal environment with rules, and realising that the there are other adults apart from their parents who have knowledge and experience to impart.

Nothing wrong with home schooling if it's done right. The PROBLEM is that the phony "christians" (and now our pandering government) are PUSHING home schooling as a way to rid themselves of public education and replace it with religious/corporate schools of propaganda. MUCH easier to control the "poorly educated" and "happily stupid" population.

“Sometimes the older ones among them racked their dim memories and tried to determine whether in the early days of the Rebellion, when Jones’s expulsion was still recent, things had been better or worse than now. They could not remember. There was nothing with which they could compare their present lives: they had nothing to go on except Squealer’s lists of figures, which invariably demonstrated that everything was getting better and better.”

— George Orwell, “Animal Farm,” 1945

When done well it is superior education. I have some cousins that were homeschooled by religiously extreme parents who are very successful and seem to have had a superior education aside from my views on the religious aspect of it. I think it would be hard to do it well socialization wise without church. Socialization is one of the things gained from school, arguably more important than the education itself.

I was raised very anti American society, kid factory (school) culture. Opposite the Christian view of it though. They think it's not Christian enough. I was taught it was too much. I considered homeschooling to avoid the right wing religious influence. I'm glad I did not. I'm pretty extremely antisocial and would not have done it well. Also I think they are better off being exposed to all that from the beginning with me at home to guide them through it.