The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Any good homeschooling resources that TheMotte would recommend?
I want to start homeschooling my two elementary school aged kids from this year (one is early elementary, the other late elementary). What are some good resources for learning at home? I'm interested in online tools (Khan Academy, stuff like that) but also premade programs and curricula, mail order/correspondence programs, anything like that. Also, any resources on being an effective homeschool teacher without formal training in education.
I want to teach the usual basics skills, but I'd also like to teach formal logic, Latin, computer skills/coding, and handwriting.
I think there was also a recent thread about homeschooling experiences on here... I'll have to dig that up as well.
I apologize in advance because what I'm about to say isn't what you asked for but I think it's important to comment.
Independent of how good of an idea homeschooling was in the past, I think it is going to become a much worse idea in the future.
One of the joys of my job is that I get to see every single slice of the population and something I've noticed is that young people are nervous wrecks theses days (especially post-COVID)...this is known - but also that a lot of home schooled kids are a lot worse.
I suspect this is due to decreasing opportunities for independence and socialization and regular school is one of the last bastions of that. This trend will likely continue to worsen as people spend more time online and less time touching grass.
I'm sure the research will catch up at some point, as it has with social media and COVID pauses, but at that point some people's lives will still be fucked.
There are plenty of reasons to avoid traditional school (safety, poor quality, woke bullshit) but the benefit is probably worth it and if you are going to home school you'll need to dig out chances for your kid(s) to socialize adequately.
Homeschoolers IME(and I know a lot of homeschoolers) go one way or another. There are plenty of homeschoolers who are ready to be functional adults, not nervous at all, mentally healthy and well rounded... at 16. There are also homeschoolers who are the opposite of that at 25. There is much less in between.
Do not go it alone when homeschooling. Do not delay normal developmental milestones, even if you think there's a good reason for it. If you are homeschooling a boy, he needs to be working for a non-family member and in sports the whole time(girls can usually handle most of the things these accomplish for themselves if allowed to). Shelter a level less than you think you need to.
I wasn't even homeschooled and I arguably couldn't despite being a girl, so... (I would argue this was because I already had CPTSD from my school experience, but that's just like my opinion man.)
I agree with Throwaway05 that it's hard and getting harder. I'm homeschooling nevertheless. So I'd be interested to hear more about this. What do you mean by "normal developmental milestones"? What would you expect a girl to want to be allowed to do that would handle this? Imagining a girl who couldn't necessarily handle this on her own, what should be done for her? (The same things? What sports? Or...?)
Most of the time, girls will manage their own social lives and seek out responsibilities for themselves after a certain age. They don’t need as much structure forcing them to do these things. The tiger mom’s homeschooled daughter will be a neurotic wreck; oversheltering will have the same result. If they’re allowed to babysit and manage their schedule with their friends they’ll turn out fine. Helicopter parenting, tiger motherhood, Carry-style extreme overprotectiveness don’t go well with all that. Of course it’s not like it’s wrong to work at chic-fil-a in her teens regardless(and bosses seem to like homeschoolers).
Homeschooling does not combine well with an Asian style college admissions grindset. This is true for both sexes. But a sort of boy scouts like attitude that the entire person needs to be produced well rounded and successful rather than seeing school as something carved out as a monomaniacal min max focus tends to serve well. That tends to mean that homeschoolers need to take steps into adulthood at the normal age somewhat more importantly than kids in more institutional schooling. Delaying things like driving or high school graduation(and bright homeschoolers finish the academic parts of high school early a lot, so this comes up more often than you’d think) because it just seems better tends to have unfortunate results.
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