We sent our homeschooled kids to public school - here's what happened...

We sent our homeschooled kids to public school and here's what happened....
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LINK TO HOMESCHOOL QUICK-START GUIDE:
www.the-empowered-life.com/ho...
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Questions answered:
- Was 2 hours a day enough? Were our kids on-level with their peers?
- What did we notice socially? Were they behind their peers socially?
- What are we doing now?
- Any regrets?
- What do I think is “Best”?
- Final thoughts
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Timestamps:
0:00 Welcome
00:28 Questions Answered
1:18 Background
1:50 Why Public School?
2:42 2-Hours Enough?
4:20 Socially?
7:08 “Socialized”
8:03 What Now?
8:37 Regrets?
10:21 What’s Best?
11:51 Remember
14:39 Why successful?
15:49 Final Thoughts
19:05 What to Expect…

[@krickett8538]

I was public schooled. That doesn't mean I talked to anyone. Or had any friends. And once I graduated, I didn't really know how to talk to anyone that wasn't my peer. You don't just magically learn social skills because you're surrounded by people your age. Thank you for the video. I'm committed to homeschool my kids all the way through, but I'll try to be more open minded as they get older.

[@whateverwithheather]

Thank you for your comment!! I definitely think having flexibility is one of the great gifts of homeschooling. And sometimes that means being flexible in what our kiddos need. But I *love* having them home. For sure! My son is the only one home now, but we're loving our time together. While one of our kiddos is living her best public school life. 😆 And my other daughter could probably go either way (that remains to be seen). Your kiddos are lucky to have you!

[@deborasmith5191]

I went to public school too. I got teased a lot for being shy. I am still shy and quiet in different environments. My son who is six is the social butterfly and talks to everyone. My mom is a social butterfly also. We homeschool him and he makes me come out of my shell more often.

[@Woopthereitis90]

New subscriber here. This isn’t something I normally comment on but I just wanted to genuinely compliment you on your video format. I really loved how straightforward and informative this was, without getting too lost in the weeds with details. Right now I just have a toddler plus one on the way, and my husband and I are highly interested in homeschooling. Your video gave a very refreshing perspective on how it can be done. Thanks ❤

[@whateverwithheather]

Thank you SO much for taking time to write this comment. It means so much. So glad it was helpful and I'll definitely share more. Reach out with any questions!

[@mzzzzzzday]

Great that you have this choice. I wonder if my mom would have chosen to homeschool if we hadn't been broke. She had to work. Also, great that you didn't shame public schools. That's what people have been doing lately and it makes me so uncomfy! as a public school teacher!

[@whateverwithheather]

I was raised by a single mom. So I know the financial struggle well. 💜 I actually work and homeschool. I will most likely be going full time in the fall (as a public school teacher 🙂), so our homeschool journey may look different again really soon. But I try to be flexible with the changing seasons in all of our lives. There definitely can be a huge divide between public school parents and homeschool parents, and I don't agree with that at all. Both have pros and cons so acting like one is superior for every-single-child-ever doesn't make sense to me. Thank you for taking time to write a comment! 💛

[@myurbangarden7695]

I am glad you shared your story. Very honest and balanced

[@Jessica-kp9hc]

Thanks for the video. Our eldest went to public school kindergarten. I really wanted to homeschool so we pulled her out. Next year, she'll be going back to public school for sixth grade. The need for peers was a big determining factor. It was really encouraging to hear you say your children were able to thrive in the middle school setting.

[@theresa.m.]

I quit home schooling and sent my kids to a public school and it was the best decision I ever made!

[@whateverwithheather]

Love that it was so good and that y'all gave it a try! 🙂

[@SarahLDennison]

WOW. Your open-mindedness and unbiased opinions are the refreshment my soul needed today. You are an amazing woman. Your children are blessed to have you as a mother and I hope they know that. I pray the best for your family always.

[@whateverwithheather]

Wow, thank you for this comment! Thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful response. Glad this was helpful. Best of luck in your journey!

[@Adelaide672]

As a homeschooled kid, being sent to public school sounds like a nightmare. I am years ahead in math and I have plenty of friends. I'd be bored out of my mind at public school.

[@whateverwithheather]

We definitely have had this experience with one of our kiddos. So totally get this!

[@boogsassy1]

My daughter tried public school and it was a nightmare for her. She’s 13 and doesn’t have any want to go back. She has friends in both homeschool and public schools.

[@whateverwithheather]

@@boogsassy1 - I definitely see this too! I sub in the schools around here (since both my daughters are in public school). And it can be a challenging transition. Public school is a good fit for our middle daughter, and not a good fit for our youngest son. Our oldest daughter could go either way. That's one of the things I love about the homeschooling community is that it's about doing what's best for your individual kiddos. And homeschooling is such an amazing fit for so many kids!

[@Getlostandwander]

This happened to my daughter. She tried public school for a few months and was so far ahead she couldn't stand the frustration and came back home.

[@whateverwithheather]

@Getlostandwander - I definitely worry about this with my son if he returns to public school. He's so far ahead I don't know how he'll deal with it. 😬

[@rebeccabernard751]

This video is seriously, a balm to my soul. We have five, and I’ve been struggling to figure out if we should do homeschool or public school. But I’ve felt the weight of making a decision that we have to stick with for the next 18 years (our youngest isn’t quite one). I haven’t considered that public and homeschool may be something that changes by seasons, and that we may have some at home and some at school. Thank you so much for the clarity, positivity and openness!! ❤

[@whateverwithheather]

Thank you for taking time to write this comment. It means so much to hear your feedback. 🩵 Can't wait to hear about your journey forward. ✨️

[@schultesweeties]

Great video! My oldest is going into 8th and has been asking more about going to public school. We are open to it and I have contacted the high school she would attend in 9th. It appears we could maybe do classes part time there…which would be so awesome for her. I love that we can all choose what works for our families and our kids! I’m a new subscriber. I also have a homeschool youtube channel.

[@whateverwithheather]

Awesome! Excited to hear how it goes for her. That's such a cool opportunity that she could go part time. Definitely going to check out your channel!

[@annaf3915]

I always understood "being socialized" not only as learning to navigate social situations but also learning social skills like asking adults for help, how to be polite, taking turns etc. Which would be more of an issue for an only child than one that is growing up with siblings. The principal of my older son''s school asked the parents of future students to start "socializing" the kids for school the year before instead of teaching them numbers or letters. Some of the examples he gave was learning to wipe up their own spills, finish board or card games that they started instead of switching activities and learning to wait for replies, for example if they ask many questions about dinosaurs, scheduling a Google assisted dino Q&A later that day.

[@whateverwithheather]

This is so true! One thing our kids also learned in public school was being good at advocating for themselves with adults. Making sure they communicated clearly with their teachers (and not just peers). Being able to navigate social situations is HUGE and definitely taught more in the homes than at schools (I see this because I sub in the schools and you can see which kiddos are being taught social skills at home). Love this perspective! Thank you for sharing!

[@tessmoore3762]

We homeschooled all 4 of ours all the way start to finish. They all did some PSEO (Post Secondary Enrollment Option where they can take college classes while still in HS). Academically ours were always way ahead of their public schooled peers in all subjects, except for spelling which they were on grade level in. (We aren't great spellers, lol) Socially they were all way ahead as well. We ran a family business in which they were all involved. They could carry on a conversation with adults and children of all ages, they weren't stuck in a rut of only being able to communicate with people their own age. I never considered sending them to the public school, and I have absolutely no regrets. Our kids were in piano lessons, homeschool bands, orchestras, speech classes, coops, went on field trips, made up their own plays, played on basket ball teams, one played football for 3 years of high school and was the quarterback even. 3 of them have college degrees, one from an Ivy league school. The one that doesn't have a degree went straight into business and has a good career, coaches his daughters basketball and softball teams and plays on a softball team himself. One daughter and her husband run the same type of business that we ran as a family, and they are even more successful that we were. 3 of ours had some degree of dyslexia (part of the spelling challenges) but totally overcame that learning challenge without being labeled or tested by public school "officials." I do not have a degree, and neither did my husband at the time we were homeschooling, yet we were highly successful at homeschooling. All but 2 of our 10 grandchildren are being or will be homeschooled as well. The 2 that aren't will be in a charter school. 😀

[@whateverwithheather]

This is amazing!!! You deserve to be so proud! So glad all of you had such an amazing experience with homeschooling. 💜💜

[@andwill636]

This perspective is so refreshing!! I am very grateful you shared this. We homeschooled for 2.5 years… (Yes, Covid gave us a good excuse to try what I had always wanted to do! And we stuck with it for two extra years.) Then we moved states and my kids wanted to go to public school in order to make new friends. It absolutely felt like the right decision! (We moved to a far-superior school district.) And now we are changing it up again, and next year I am bringing my two younger ones home, and my upcoming 8th and 11th graders are going to stay in public school. This actually puts us in a surprisingly strange position. As I try to make new friends in the homeschool community here it feels like they think I’m crazy to let 2 of my kids stay in public school. But they’re having a very positive experience! It doesn’t have to be one or the other. I just feel like now all of *my* peers on both sides of the schooling aisle think I’m crazy and don’t really belong in their “camp.” I hope you continue to share your experience with kids in homeschool and public school. I will definitely be following along. I also agree wholeheartedly with your point about having a solid sense of self. I think our years homeschooling prepared my kids to jump back into school and thrive. Also, fwiw, my daughter who was homeschooled for basically all of middle school jumped into AP and honors classes at the HS and is absolutely up to snuff academically. ☺️ Intentional homeschool is completely sufficient for a child’s academic needs.

[@whateverwithheather]

Thank you for such a thoughtful comment! So glad to hear of other families doing a mix based on what their kids need individually. 💜 We definitely don't fit in to any "camp" and I'm ok with that... our family, our journey. If I'm doing exactly what everyone else is doing I can probably guarantee that I'm not doing what we need. 💛

[@deborasmith5191]

I just found your video tonight. I agree with what you said throughout the video. Every family is different so what works for one family may not work for another. Thank you for sharing your story. I am homeschooling my 6 year old son. Some days, it can be a struggle and other days he loves it. He finds me a boring teacher. I think I just need to find a was to change it up for him.

[@whateverwithheather]

Thank you for your comment! Hope you have a great homeschooling journey with your son!

[@MamaJeanMontessoriMusic]

This was informative. Thank you for sharing your experiences and tips honestly.

[@whateverwithheather]

Glad it was helpful! Thank you for watching.

[@crystalpetitt1063]

Thank you for this video. We have homeschooled for the last three years and in this fourth year my boys are 6 & 8 grade and we are thinking about public high school. I wish there were other options in our area to have quality peer opportunities and the kind of education that is tailored to them.

[@whateverwithheather]

Thank you for your comment! We definitely relate to the challenge of finding quality peer opportunities (especially as a homeschooler). It was HUGE reason we decided to send our older daughters to school. After years of trying to find and even create social options, it just wasn't happening. Best of luck moving forward! Reach out with any questions!

[@greeneileen]

I appreciated hearing everything you had to say here. You also gave me useful framing of 'unmonitored comments' that is more graceful than what I was using in my mind to describe interactions between undersupervised kids at public school. I would add a caveat that not all countries are flexible about in or out. I live in Spain where homeschooling is a gray area because according to the Constitution it is legal, but according to education law it isn't. Local schools will not hold a place for you if you are not fully enrolled, nor do they accommodate mid-year changes unless there are extenuating circumstances like a documented move or refugee status. If you don't jump a lot of hoops to demonstrate that you're homeschooling in a way that's been dictated you may run afoul of the equivalent of child protective services. This may include passing tests in a local language. It kind of defeats the purpose for a lot of parents. I'm American and have ten-year-old neurodivergent twins. My kids attend a Catalan public school but I am essentially giving them a parallel home education in English. I'm trying to best meet their needs and leave the door open to living or continuing their schooling in the US if they want to later. Literacy skills in English have been my primary focus. (We do some supplemental math and science to make sure their vocabulary is strong.) I'm considering downshifting to mostly 'pleasure reading' from our quality home library. We are at a place where a steady supply of good books would probably be enough to ease my anxiety about meeting their educational needs, but maybe I'm not 100 percent there since here I am commenting on your video :) Does your 'two hour' estimate includes your kids' independent reading time? Or does it reflect the time in which you're doing structured instruction?

[@TanjaMatijevic]

Thank you for this video. I am in the beginning, and I want to try.

[@whateverwithheather]

Best of luck! Reach out with any questions.

[@Kensbev]

I refused to put my kids in public school when they were younger. The schools in my area are crap, all levels. We never stopped homeschooling until they finished 12th grade. Both have now graduated, and they're getting their GEDs, just to make it easier to get into secondary education without jumping through hoops. They got a lot of interaction with other kids through church, our homeschool group, and their groups/hobbies, as well as volunteering at their dance and ballet schools for years. We also sent them to co-op classes, just so they'd know what a classroom was like and to allow them to learn from someone other than me. I used to threaten them with public school when they acted up. They totally did not want that! I gave them achievement tests every year, just to make sure I was doing a good job. They always scored years above their actual grade level. I'm not sure that was because I was a great teacher (I wasn't), just maybe they take after their dad and are pretty smart. Now that they're adults, they have no regrets about being homeschooled. They are both working before college or vocational school, once they make up their minds about what they want to be. I feel like the lack of the pressure that I had to go to college right immediately after graduation I got when I was in high school has allowed them the freedom to realize they don't have to decide on their careers until they're more mature.

[@whateverwithheather]

That all sounds so great! Thank you for sharing your experience!

[@ShellyStephen]

I’m struggling to decide if I want to do private homeschooling, me schooling them at home or do a virtual online school through my school district it’s free. All they have to do is complete all their assignments for the day to be marked as present and if needed they can get extra help. Also we have to meet with their teacher once a month. I feel like I’m a bad mom if I don’t private home school my kids myself.

[@whateverwithheather]

Mom-guilt is REAL! A good place to start is to ask yourself: - What is my goal with schooling my kids at home? - And, what would a good homeschool day look like and FEEL like for me as well as my kids? If you find that your reasons for keeping them home (and out of public school) have to do with flexibility, freedom, personal beliefs, etc. Then it doesn't really matter how the homeschooling is done. And, if it's important for homeschooling to feel enjoyable and do-able, then it may be best to choose the path that creates the least work for you. :) Some homeschooling belief systems like to act like there's a "right" and "best" way to homeschool. But, what drives most people to homeschool is that there is flexibility and personal choice in HOW it is done. So feel free to give yourself some grace and flexibility in HOW you choose to make it happen. :)

[@ShellyStephen]

@@whateverwithheather Thanks!!!!!!

[@ashlieleavelle]

Did you use box curriculum or did you do the " unschooling "? Thank you for sharing.

[@whateverwithheather]

We didn't end up doing "unschooling" since our son had been homeschooled before. We just transitioned back into our school work in a similar way we had before. All of the curriculum we use I bought off Amazon. I'll make a video sharing what we use soon!

[@corinneferrarolam5101]

What state were living you in when you sent them to school?

[@whateverwithheather]

Texas!

[@meganvansipe]

My kids went this year for the first time in 5th and 2nd grade, too!

[@whateverwithheather]

Awesome! How has it been for them??

[@meganvansipe]

@@whateverwithheather your experience sounds so similar to ours! Both of our girls want to keep going, they (mostly) enjoy it and have grown so much especially socially. They found it loud and overstimulating and got frustrated by some behavior issues of others but overall they love their experience, love their teachers, and have made new friends and gained a lot of skills and independence.

[@whateverwithheather]

@@meganvansipe - Love that it's been mostly good for them. Our daughters had the same complaints - overstimulating (especially at lunch) and the energy is high almost all of the time. And the behavior issues with other kids for SURE was a complaint. :) So glad that overall public school is working for your girls! It's so fun to see our kiddos thrive in different situations.

[@krissysherrell6625]

People don’t realize… the school day is filled with off task nonsense. So in reality public and private school kids all typically have 2-3 hours of meaningful lessons and work (and that’s with an outstanding teacher and a decent group of peers in the classroom)

[@whateverwithheather]

THIS! In school actual instruction time is super short and actual one-on-one time is almost non-existent. So at home, with more one-on-one time, learning takes even less time.

[@emmib1388]

Yes! Many learned this as their children were remote a few years ago 😊

[@kellyprobst3533]

My son home schooled grade 4 to 7 He did one hour a week in math He is now in school as an 8th grader . He’s got an A in algebra one .

[@whateverwithheather]

Yes! It's amazing what kids can learn in a short amount of time. How school is set up has people believing that LONG time equals MORE education. But it's actually not really the case. Thank you for your comment!

[@OhioTreasures]

So I home schooled my oldest 7-9th and he wanted to go a vocational public high school to learn trade. so we called and applied as a home schooler. They accepted our transcript, and he went for the 10th grade year. One month before school ended last week, the school contacted me saying they could not accept his credits, and he would have to do 11th grade and the 9th grade next year in order to keep his spot. He's pretty upset. I can't get any help from Ohio Department of Ed they have no one who deals with this issue. They can't explain the law in practice they have listed. Can't find an attorney to even listen to the case. I would suggest anyone home educating to figure out high school before 9th grade become going in and out in not easy.

[@whateverwithheather]

Ugh, I'm so sorry for him! Every state is different, so I definitely recommend that people do their research and set up a long-term (including high school) game-plan when homeschooling, so that if kiddos want to go back to public school they can make the transition. You're definitely right about that! We are in TX which is pretty easy and low/no regulation for homeschooling. HSLDA.org is probably your best resource for the laws in Ohio and approaching the school with the actual laws and regulations will probably be your best bet (if the laws support your homeschool transcript). I briefly looked at Ohio's laws and it looks like there are a couple different options for homeschooling, which have different requirements and notification requirements. Here's a link if you need it. hslda.org/post/how-to-comply-with-ohios-homeschool-law Our school district once told me I needed to provide proof of the work our children had completed, and when I told them that according to TX state laws that I didn't have to keep any records or provide any records... They backed down and never asked again. Best of luck!

[@zippythechicken]

I don't know if summer school has started yet but maybe they would allow him to attend classes during the summer to qualify for the 9th grade. I know in college you can test out of classes but you still pay for them.. if they are saying he is completing both years at the same time then hours wouldn't be the issue. think about it and ask .. maybe its a possibility. also in my state you can attend community college during high school so maybe if its a math or science he could attend there... unfortunately it would be a much more difficult course. good luck .. its a tough one

[@annaf3915]

By 2 hours a day, do you mean 2 hours of one on one time with each child or did you have all of them doing school work for 2 hours at the same time?

[@whateverwithheather]

Hi! 2 hours of school work all at the same time. Here is the video explaining our 2 hour homeschool plan: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oqmQmmeom7KXnJI Let me know if you have any questions!

[@annaf3915]

@@whateverwithheather Thank you!

[@whateverwithheather]

@@annaf3915 - you're welcome!

[@allyivy1784]

Being socially awkward is a character trait.

[@whateverwithheather]

Some of my favorite people are socially awkward. 💃 Definitely not a problem. 🩵

[@searose6192]

Why? Why would you do that?

[@theresa.m.]

Why not? My kids go to an amazing public school. I’m so glad we stopped home schooling. They’re doing so much better academically and socially!

[@whateverwithheather]

The horror! 😆 Watch the video and you'll know why. And you'll know if we're back to homeschooling or not... ✌️

[@knrock5163]

😂​@@whateverwithheather

[@xthebluenitex]

@1:53 maybe actually watch the video?