{"id":279,"date":"2005-08-23T20:56:32","date_gmt":"2005-08-23T20:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/?p=279"},"modified":"2010-05-08T20:57:06","modified_gmt":"2010-05-08T20:57:06","slug":"defending-our-decision-to-homeschool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/defending-our-decision-to-homeschool\/","title":{"rendered":"Defending Our Decision to Homeschool"},"content":{"rendered":"

Isn’t it ironic that\u00a0homeschoolers\u00a0have to “defend” our decision to homeschool?\u00a0 Some people feel so threatened and “judged” simply by the very existence of homeschoolers, as if by our choices we are questioning theirs. <\/span><\/p>\n

I don’t go around\u00a0telling folks in my neighborhood or my church, “I\u00a0don’t understand how you can possibly send your kids to public school.\u00a0 I just don’t have the patience to get my kids ready by 7:00 every morning and help them with homework for hours every night.\u00a0How can you really\u00a0be sure\u00a0they’re learning, anyway, when all you get is a report card every 9 weeks?\u00a0 And aren’t you worried about socialization?\u00a0When your kids spend all day\u00a0in a room with a bunch of other kids the same age, how will they ever learn to function in the real<\/em> world?”<\/span><\/p>\n

If homeschoolers actually interrogated public-schoolers about their decision NOT to homeschool the way\u00a0some feel free to interrogate us about our decision TO homeschool, can you imagine the sparks that would fly?\u00a0 Better have a fire extinguisher handy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the best advice I’ve heard\u00a0for dealing with folks who question your homeschooling is to determine whether they are hostile, simply curious, genuinely concerned for your family’s well-being, or perhaps testing the waters to consider homeschooling themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think it’s better\u00a0not to engage in a debate with the truly hostile, but\u00a0to have a simple, brief answer ready\u2014something along the lines of “This is what\u00a0I believe is best for my family”\u2014and leave it at that.\u00a0 Just don’t take the bait.\u00a0 On the other hand, if someone seems genuinely interested, you might want to go into a bit more detail than you would with questioners who are merely looking to pick a fight.\u00a0\u00a0Dealing with the simply curious would fall somewhere in the middle.\u00a0 The genuinely concerned (family members, perhaps, or your pastor\u2014though I realize these folks\u00a0sometimes\u00a0fall into the hostile camp) deserve a thoughtful reply.<\/span><\/p>\n

I’d love to hear your suggestions for how to respond to folks who question your decision to homeschool.\u00a0 Comments welcome!<\/span><\/p>\n

Mary Jo<\/span><\/p>\n

Copyright 2005 by Mary Jo Tate<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Isn’t it ironic that\u00a0homeschoolers\u00a0have to “defend” our decision to homeschool?\u00a0 Some people feel so threatened and “judged” simply by the very existence of homeschoolers, as if by our choices we are questioning theirs. I don’t go around\u00a0telling folks in my neighborhood or my church, “I\u00a0don’t understand how you can possibly send your kids to public … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}