Why We Stopped Homeschooling

It’s been a few years since we made the choice to go back to public school. 

The biggest reason was the kids missed socializing with kids their own age and the only co-ops in the area were religiously oriented. 

I don’t have a problem with religion but I don’t want religion mixed with my education. I was especially concerned when I learned that the co-opted education part of the religious co-op was science. 

For those unfamiliar with Kentucky,The Ark is a popular tourist attraction here. 

If that’s something you want to do and spend your own money on cool. From what I know, it’s not a cheap trip but you do you (and all that jazz).

The idea though, that this is “science” is, to me, a joke. 

The Ark was a “science” field trip for the local co-op. 

Some might suggest starting a secular co-op on my own but I don’t feel as though I have that kind of clout. I’m not cheerful enough and I feel overwhelmed at the thought of leading something like that. 

Nor do I feel as though it would be very well received in the area in which I live. Maybe I’d be surprised. I hope that I would. 

I got pregnant with my (surprise) third child at the end of 2020 and the idea of doing anything more than I was already doing sounded like hell. 

The kids missed school for more than just the socialization. I think they missed the routine. I was not good at maintaining the kind of “routine” they seemed to miss. 

Not to mention that doing school and having rules in the place where they wanted to relax really wasn’t working for us. 

Maybe if we had the small shed that we have now, to have worked in, and created a new space we could have made it work but sadly we didn’t. 

Homeschool just didn’t work out for us. 

I think there’s a chance that I may look more into it for my last child but for now he will attend part time at the local preschool. 

The older two are in high school.

I spoke with a friend who told me that she had decided to not have kids. She was shocked that I, a person with three, told her that wasn’t a bad decision. 

We then discussed how we both felt about the public school system. (A broken system trying to hold itself together with the hopes and good wishes of better people than I’ll ever be- supported entirely by a broken government that appears to be trying to tear it down and sell it off piecemeal-but I digress)

We discussed how I had tried homeschooling and how, while I feel that I wasn’t the best at it, that I still think about it a lot. Mostly because of school shootings. 

What a nightmare to live in such a world. A world where the statistics of our kids just going to school to be shot at grows every day. 

Anyway, that is why we stopped homeschooling. But why I will ALWAYS understand any parents desire to do so.