Most parents just accept public school as the normal that it is, and don’t think twice about sending their children to one. Some parents want a different, non-traditional, educational experience for their children, so they turn to homeschooling. My parents were these sorts of parents. I was homeschooled until the middle of 8th grade, and I experienced difficulties with homeschooling and then transitioning to a traditional public school. Homeschooling is a way of education that lets the parents choose what their children learn, and lets the kids have more flexibility than the usual classroom setting, but is homeschooling the best choice? And should you ever move to public school after homeschooling?

One of the downsides to homeschool is that most homeschooled kids won’t be able to access many of the experiences that are important to children and teens who go to school. These might include school plays, recess with friends, highschool dances, and more. “School experiences are crucial for shaping individuals’ developmental and well-being trajectories later in life,” says an article by phys.org. And when kids aren’t going to school they won’t have access to facilities that other kids do, such as gyms, a lab, and sports. 

 It can be more difficult for homeschooled kids to make and have friendships their own age, since they aren’t in a school setting with all their peers. It can especially be hard for homeschooled kids living in small rural towns, like Mendocino, where there probably aren’t many other kids homeschooling. For example, a homeschool mom living in a small town writes a post that says, “I am feeling like my boys are missing something as we can not find friends. And we have had a very difficult time finding a church…either too small, too conservative, too contemporary or no kids in their age range.” These sorts of complaints are common, and when there’s limited options to finding other homeschool kids, the groups of people and kids they do have access to are probably like themselves and not very diverse.

When kids are homeschooled, their parents oversee their whole world, what they learn, what they watch, and who they make friends with. This can lead children to have a sheltered view of the world around them. They won’t be exposed to a large diverse group of kids their age, like when kids are in classrooms with a mix of kids they might not otherwise be around. When they don’t have access to different groups of people, they probably won’t meet many kids their age from different financial and ethnic backgrounds, and kids with different views and life stories. When I was homeschooled, I was sheltered a lot; most information and experiences were censored by my parents. When I started public school, it was an adjustment being with so many new people, and since I had been so sheltered, I felt like it took me a while to fit in with everyone my own age. 

When a parent or child decides they want the child to go to public school, the transition can be difficult in many aspects. For kids going into school it can be hard to adjust to the rigorous schedule of waking up and going to school every day and can be overwhelming to be exposed to huge amounts of other kids after being schooled at home and probably only being with family for ¨school¨ time. One person I interviewed who started high school sophomore year said, “When I started going to school, I felt depressed and confused.” Putting kids into the school system is also a difficult process because there’s a lot of paperwork and kids who have been homeschooling most likely haven’t been taking standard testing so it can be hard for teachers to place the students in the correct classes, especially for high school and middle school students. 

Homeschooling is an option that isn’t traditional but works for some people. Even though it can be hard to give your child access to different experiences or transition when it’s time for public school, it can be a great thing for some families. I think as long as your child is enthusiastic it could be good but personally I wouldn’t home school my future kids because I was for so long and feel like I didn’t have access to all the opportunities I could have if I went to school.