Why I would Rather Not Home School

The Home School thing seems to bring up all kinds of emotions. Those who are for it generally think there is nothing better. Those who are not for it tend to think Home School Students are missing something that everyone else is getting.

Truth be told, both sides have some good points. I have blogged about bad and good reasons to home school but kept my thoughts relatively vague. I will be much more specific with this entry, but it may be long and I will definitely qualify statements along the way.

As a Youth Pastor for over ten years, five of which were spent in a church with a school in it, I have made many observations about those who home school or attend private school. I have noticed some good trends and some negative trends among the students. I have noticed the same among the parents. Let me expound:

• The parents genuinely love their kids. They love them enough to give up the opportunity to make more money, drive better cars, take more extravagant vacations, and live in a bigger house.
  
• It seems like most of the time (at least in Christians circles) the parents homes school because they want to protect their kids from the evil world.

Protecting our kids is something we should do as parents. If we love them we will protect them, sometimes. Let me explain. My son Joash is a maniac. As an 18 month old baby (if you can call him that) he can already climb to the top bunk of my daughters bunk bed (not something we are very happy about). He has no fear of anything. He will have to learn how to fear some things. He is so destructive to himself that we have actually made him wear a helmet just walking around the house because we are scared he is going to accidentally kill himself (the helmet wasn't my idea, nor was it one I liked). There are times when I will see that he is going to fall and bump his head and I will not catch him. That is right I will let him fall and get a little bump on his head. It is not that I want him to get hurt, but he needs to learn to be careful. If there is any kind of serious danger I will certainly catch him or stop him from getting into a bad situation. I know all the moms who read this will immediately cringe and determine that I am a bad parent, but before you jump to that conclusion go talk to your husband. I bet on occasion he has done similar things. This is why there is a mom and a dad.

What is my point? My point is this. Parents can be over protective. Being over protective is not about freedom, it is about letting kids learn some things the hard way. Life is full of hard difficult lessons. I believe it is often good for kids to be hurt so they can learn. This life is full of hurt and there is nothing we can do about it except try to help our kids avoid the major hurts by occasionally letting them fail in smaller things. This is where parents speaking prophetically comes into play. Tell them it is going to hurt, let them get hurt and then ask them if they think it might be a good idea to listen next time.

Private school and home school can be over protective for some kids. Every student is different and needs different boundaries. We never had wot worry about my daughter climbing the bunk bed, we had to convince her to do it when she was 7. Eventually our kids are going to face opposition to what the believe, our job is to help them see the truth when it has been clouded. It is our job to help them know how to avoid temptations even when it is their friends doing the tempting.

Protection can be a bad reason for private or home school options.

• HS & PS (home school & private school) parents often want to consider these options for spiritual reasons.
  

I have seen HS & PS kids who know tons about the Bible, who live moral lives, but whose faith has never really been tested. Just hang out with Bible quizzers for a while, generally the really good quizzers are HS kids (don't get mad, I am not dissing quizzing or the fact that HS kids are good at quizzing). These kids can probably quote more scripture than I can (not that, that is some kind of great accomplishment), but do they know what it means to have an authority figure challenging what they believe and maintaining their faith? Faith is generally developed better under fire.

Again, don't misunderstand. I am all for teaching kids God's word. If you read my posts you will see that I highly value scripture and teaching it to students. I am working on a post for one of my other blogs, Pj's Youth Ministry Minute, dealing with teaching theology to students. I would suggest this; it is the parents job to teach their kids God's word, values, and what it means to have faith no matter what school their kids attend. PS is not a replacement for parents being the primary disciple makers for their own kids.

• PS & HS kids tend to be arrogant in their view of anyone who believes something contrary to what they believe.

I taught a World View and Apologetics class at a private school (with some HS kids in the class). We talked about alternative worldviews as apposed to the Christian worldview. The attitude communicated to me by the students toward other worldviews was poor at best. On one occasion a student called those who disagree with the Christian worldview "stupid." Not only is this untrue it is certainly not loving. Students who have regularly been subjected to apposing views tend to be more tolerant (in the good sense of the word) and less antagonistic. They seem to be able to have a conversation about things with which they disagree without being jerks.

• PS & HS students also tend to be anti-social.
  

This is not to say they are not capable of being social. I actually believe many of the HS kids are capable of being social, but chose not to be. When I was a youth pastor I saw this first hand. PS or HS kids would simply chose not to mingle with those who attended public school at youth group events or programs. I had to work hard to change the atmosphere at youth ministry programs. Over time things got better.

• PS & HS kids have a tendency to be less evangelistic.
  

They would talk about evangelism. They were willing to talk about how ridiculous it is to not be a Christian, but to actually consider talking to their neighbor about Jesus was out of the question. Sure, if they went to a foreign country or on some mission trip they would be evangelistic, but not the person who lived across the street. This is somewhat symptomatic of the church in general, but it seems to be more pervasive with HS & PS students.

There are a lot of reasons I did not want to HS my daughter. These are some of them. I should remind you that I am now officially a HS parent and I attended private school through 8th grade. I am not speaking out of turn.

I also realize the trends I have noticed are only trends, they are not rules. There are exceptions to all of them. I also realize that some students need more protection and hands on parenting and HS is one way to accomplish that.

I think the best reason to home school or send your student to private school is because public schools have become significantly less reliable when it comes to actually teaching kids how to read, write, and do math. This is our reason for choosing the HS option (we can't afford private school and I am not sure we would chose that option anyway). Apparently the school my daughter was attending is more concerned about teaching tolerance, acceptance, and good self esteem then math, reading, and writing.