quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: You miss my point. There are advantages to having mentors who know the system. One disadvantage of home schooling is that you forego access to these people. That is a real disadvantage and one parents should be aware of when they choose to homeschool.
Yes its possible to make up for some of that by doing your own research and yes not every child in public or private school gets that kind of mentor. But not knowing a particular piece of information or where to find it doesn't make a person a looser. Good mentoring is a thing of worth.
If a homeschooling parent does *not* consider the fact that they are going to need to do their own research on this topic, if they choose to homeschool in some form during high school, then yes, I do consider them "homeschooling losers". If a homeschooling parent can't figure out *how* to find out the hoops that need to be jumped through to get the kid into college, then they are "homeschooling losers".
When so much of this information is readily available from homeschooling websites, if they can't find that information, they shouldn't be homeschooling. Heck, I'd probably call them homeschooling losers if the *teen* can't figure these things out on their own by this point.
*curmudgeonly* In my day, we didn't have the internet to look these things up easily. We had to actually use books and pamphlets!
quote:Originally posted by BannaOj: Part V. The Gentle Spirit Controversy. If you are going to skil a section this is the one to skip. It deals with the author's embroilment with being blacklisted by some in the homeschooling community due to a divorce with complicating factors. She she won a lawsuit against influential people in the homeschooling community including some who are now prominent in HSLDA.
That's an amazing read. I jumped to this part because I was interested in her personal experience first, but I'm motivated now to read the rest.
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The author now considers herself a radical feminist. I've read some of the stuff at her other website, and while I can't entirely buy into the philosophy or rhetoric I think they have valuable points.
quote:Rabbit, your points exactly match up with concerns I have about many "2nd generation" homeschoolers (not the best term but the best one I can come up with at the moment).
I'm also curious as to how many years ago you first started interacting with homeschoolers, and if you think anything has changed over that time.
In general, (although homeschooling is still so diverse it is hard to generalize) the "first generation" homeschoolers were much more actively aware of all of the drawbacks you listed, and taking steps to directly counteract all of the negatives you mentioned.
I think the "2nd gen" homeschoolers relied on a lot of data from the "1st gen" homeschoolers, not realizing how hard that group worked to expose their kids to a variety of situations and overcome the exact drawbacks you mentioned.
I started teaching at the University level in the early nineties and had quite a bit of interaction with home schooled students for about 10 years. I've had a lot less interaction over the past 5 years so its difficult for me to say much about trends.
While I was in Montana, I spent several years on the Presidential scholarship selection committee so my experiences include not only working with students in a class room environment but also dealing with the top level students who were competitive for these prestigious scholarships. My interviews with home schooled students (and these were students who had excellent test scores and wrote outstanding essays) were uniformly disappointing. These students without exception were very immature in their ability to deal with diversity, complexity and controversy when compared to students from traditional schools. Additionally, although they were very strong in some areas like writing, they had big gaps in some other areas of the education often including history, math and science.
My sense is that this is an inherent draw back of home schooling. You simply can't replicate the learning experience of that comes from being forced on a daily basis to deal with other students and teachers with diverse ideas and values.
This inherent draw back is made even worse by the fact that many parents who homeschool do it specifically to protect their children from controversy and diversity. If the best home schooled students come to the University ill prepared to deal with controversial topics and diverse ideas, what should we expect from those who have been specifically sheltered from any interaction with anyone not of their religion?
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I started reading the history you linked to AJ, there is a lot of interesting stuff in it and I will continue. Unfortunately, the author starts off by hitting one of my hot buttons when she describes people who home school as bound by "their common love and concern for children and their desire to do what is right by them."
Its hard to explain why I find that phrase offensive. Its not because I doubt that parents who choose to home school are genuinely concerned for their children and trying to give them the best education possible.
Perhaps I object to the implication that this differentiates parents who choose to home school from those who don't, an attitude I have definitely felt from some home school parents. I've known more than a few parents who had the attitude that they had to homeschool to be good parents.
Perhaps it is because I feel most parents who choose to home school, despite their best intentions aren't doing what is in their child's best interests. It bothers me to see parents who care so much and yet are acting on false assumptions about the quality of public schools and the value of home schooling.
Perhaps I'm offended by it because I so much appreciate the unselfishness of parents who are working hard with public schools to insure not only that their children are well educated but that the whole community has access to quality education.
Perhaps it is simply because I personally think a strong public education systems is the most important part of a strong community. If the parents who care most about their children's education pull out of the public institutions, it condemns those institutions to a downward spiral that adversely affects the entire community -- even those who home school.
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quote:Perhaps I object to the implication that this differentiates parents who choose to home school from those who don't, an attitude I have definitely felt from some home school parents. I've known more than a few parents who had the attitude that they had to homeschool to be good parents.
I've not only encountered that attitude, but had almost those exact WORDS said to me. I've also been told I'm not a good Christian because I send my kids to public school and because I intend to be a public school teacher.
My kids have to exist in the world where everyone does NOT have a Christian worldview, and they need to learn how to do that, which is the main reason I'm against the idea of homeschooling my own.
I truly resent having my devotion to my religious beliefs called into question because I believe in working for better educational opportunities for ALL children in the community where I will teach.
quote:Perhaps it is simply because I personally think a strong public education systems is the most important part of a strong community. If the parents who care most about their children's education pull out of the public institutions, it condemns those institutions to a downward spiral that adversely affects the entire community -- even those who home school.
Agreed. It would be nice if parents put their time and energy into volunteering at the public schools and helping to make education better for all kids.
My daughter learned a valuable lesson this week - about how to deal with an authority figure that is difficult, perhaps even hostile to her. She has an issue with a teacher who doesn't want to let her make up work she missed when she was sick. I told my daughter to go and ask what she had to do, and the teacher refused to allow her to make it up. She also gave her a poor grade on an assignment without letting my daughter know what she did wrong - she took off twenty points but marked nothing wrong, gave her no indication of how to improve for the next assignment.
Now, this teacher is, in my opinion, not very competent. There have been issues other students and parents have had with her, including some people whom I trust that have honor students, like mine, that have run into trouble with this teacher. My husband and I finally stepped in and called the school, wanting to leave a message and talk to the teacher directly, and without directly telling us, the administration let us know by their reaction that there have been multiple problems with this teacher. We were instructed by the administration how to handle our discussions with her and told that the principal would be available to meet with us, that and other things the secretary let slip tell me the stories I've heard from other parents are pretty truthful.
Now, my daughter has had to navigate this precarious situation. She has to go face a teacher every day that may not be supportive and might even not like her at all, especially after my husband and I have gotten involved, and potentially the administration. It's tough, and it makes her uncomfortable.
But guess what - that's valuable experience. It will help her in the future, because she will face difficulty in college, and in the workforce.
Of course, we won't always be there to bail her out, (and I assure you, I waited until my daughter had exhausted every opportunity on her own - I made her confront the teacher herself first) but she's a minor and it's still my job as a parent to help her when she's done all she can do.
She would never learn how to handle this in homeschool. These are the types of things that homeschoolers quote when they give reasons to pull their kids out of school - I happen to think situations like this are reasons to leave my kids IN public schools. Life is not fair, life is not easy, and sometimes people are jerks and sometimes they are even incompetent - but you may have to deal with them all the same.
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Rabbit, I understand your hot button there. The implication that a homeschooling parent loves their children more is absolutely preposterous. Please keep reading, (if you want read the section that I told you to skip first) because I am fairly certain that she would shudder to think she was that judgmental now. Also, the circumstances in which the author was embroiled influence her writing as she goes along.
The judgementalness of homeschoolers against non-homeschoolers in the Christian community especially, has come full circle in the last several decades. She covers quite adequately the current judgementalness of homeschoolers against other homeschoolers also. Her last post, on "who stole homeschooling" is diametrically opposing the judgementalness of many of the current generation of homeschoolers.
This is part of what upsets my own mother. Because homeschooling is now the "thing to do" people don't go into it with the same sort of considered gravity that they used to. If they knew that they were likely to get arrested for homeschooling their children like earlier generations were, they probably wouldn't do it. Yet they have the gall to be judgmental if you aren't homeschooling... totally preposterous!
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Belle, situations like you are describing are absolutely *not* reasons to pull a child out of school. In some ways I see homeschooling becoming an extension of "helicopter parenting" so-called because the hovering parent never lets the child breathe. Again, this was exactly the opposite, of what most of the founders of the movement wanted for their children. They wanted the child to have more freedom to explore and discover things under Less rigidly controlled circumstances, rather than making the environment *more* controlled than it would have been already.
Summerhill by A.S. Neill epitomized much of the philosophy of early homeschoolers. I know it was a major influence on my own mother. The school Neill started still exists in the UK. http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/pages/history.htmlPosts: 11265 | Registered: Mar 2002
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AJ, I never sensed exactly that the author intended to imply that parents who home school are more dedicated to their children than those who don't. It was simply an issue of context. I've known enough parents who do believe that home schooling is the only responsible way to parent that it was hard not to see that in her writing.
If parents who home school are truly "bound by their common love and concern for their children and their desire to do what is right by them", they should feel that bond with all good parents no matter how they choose to school their children.
It would be more honest to say that parents who home school are bound by a commitment to personal control of their child's education.
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Rabbit, I disagree though. I don't think that the early homeschooling parents were necessarily into "personal control" of their child's education the way many existing homeschoolers do. The idea of letting a child choose their own education and find their own interests was a very real idea, one that has been put into practice reasonably successfully.
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I wasn't completely comfortable with the phrase "personal control" when I wrote it but I'm still not sure what a better choice would be.
Not all parents who home school are overly controlling and though that is implied by the term it not what I meant. I mean that home schoolers are united by belief that parent and child should be in control of the educational process rather than a school system.
If by "personal" you understand "parent and child" rather than solely parent, would you agree?
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quote:Originally posted by Jhai: The LA Times is reporting that a California state appellate court ruled that parents without teaching credentials will not be allowed to homeschool their children.
I finally had a chance to read the article more carefully. (As well as some other news sources on the topic.)
First of all, I'm not clear on whether this only affects the be-a-really-small-private-school homeschooling option, or the others as well. Can parents still use the independent-study option? (Which is more popular with the locals I know who homeschool.)
Also, it seems to me that this threatens the ability of private schools to hire teachers without a credential. Does it?
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Let me mull that over Rabbit. Do you believe that a parent has the ultimate responsibility for their child's education or not?
I mean it really comes down to a parent's rights vs state's rights issue. Does the state have a compelling right to tell a parent how to educate their child or not?
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quote:Originally posted by Jhai: The LA Times is reporting that a California state appellate court ruled that parents without teaching credentials will not be allowed to homeschool their children.
I finally had a chance to read the article more carefully. (As well as some other news sources on the topic.)
First of all, I'm not clear on whether this only affects the be-a-really-small-private-school homeschooling option, or the others as well. Can parents still use the independent-study option? (Which is more popular with the locals I know who homeschool.)
Also, it seems to me that this threatens the ability of private schools to hire teachers without a credential. Does it?
Actually, the most immediate effects are seen as focusing on ind. study HSers. Then going to the reistered-as-private-school HSers. At least from what I've read.
What's funny is that the decision, the way I and others have read it, would even affect IS through the public school district, unless daily or weekly in-home supervision was given by a teacher from the SD (which most SDs I know cannot provide for every single student who does IS through their district.) That would impact hugely, for instance, girls who get pregnant and opt to do a semester/year/two years of IS to finish HS while caring for their babies. (Not as much kids in the hospital or home for medical reasons, since they usually have more access to teachers.)
Oh, and here's a quote for you that tells you this isn't going to last long:
quote:State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell comes to the defense of homeschool families. “The California Department of Education policy will not change in any way as a result of this ruling. Parents still have the right to homeschool in this state,” he said.
(From the HSLDA site, in one of their articles on response to the ruling.)
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rivka, my mother and I were discussing that tonight.
It probably comes down to whether you go with a broad interpretation or a strict one. Strictly interpreted, it bans private school Independent Study Programs, as "at home tutoring" and the CA state law says that "tutors must be credentialed teachers."
The decision is also badly worded because it convolutes private schools and charter public schools in one section.
Broadly interpreted, it would ban even all public independent study programs with very few exceptions, so I don't think that a broad interpretation will go over well.
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quote: It would be nice if parents put their time and energy into volunteering at the public schools and helping to make education better for all kids.
And yet if their roads were in poor shape, no one would imply that they should go out and help patch it. I find it interesting that schools get a different standard than other public services that way.
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quote:Do you believe that a parent has the ultimate responsibility for their child's education or not?
Ultimate responsibility should rest with the child.
But yeah-- the parent is inherently more responsible than the state for the education of their child.
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But seriously, neighbourhood watch borders on police territory, I've seen volunteer groups that pick up garbage and clean-up parks, volunteer fireman departments, and I think the local level of Elections Canada is dominated by volunteers.
I don't think schools are the only public service that asks for volunteers.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: If parents who home school are truly "bound by their common love and concern for their children and their desire to do what is right by them", they should feel that bond with all good parents no matter how they choose to school their children.
True. The problem is,extreme parents on all sides on the dbate can't see that there is no one, right educational solution for all. That's why we need ALL available options-public, home, private, magnet, charter, vo-tech, and everything else. Eliminate one, any one, and kids wil suffer.
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Another big difference between education and patching a road is that the kid's ability to succeed (and more importantly desire to succeed) is not based entirely on what happens at the school. If parents say school is a waste of time, or just a good way to get free lunch or a babysitter, the kids are more likely to treat it that way. While I agree that a lot of homework is busywork, some hw and studying (at high school level atleast) is necessary. Dropping a kid off at school does not mean you no longer have to work at raising the child. Because there is so much overlap between home and school, it can not be treated the same as patching a road and expect success (though some parents certainly do behave that way). Note- a lot of my views on education come from having a husband work at a very bad inner city school that had numerous problems on every level.
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Exactly. Despite the rare inspirational story that would try to convince us otherwise, any educational venture will rely upon the involvemnt and support of the parents.
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You're right, Mucus, those are all excellent points. I guess I'm just disillusioned with volunteering in general. Sure, maintaining the status quo is better then descending into worse conditions than we have now. But we trumpet its virtues like it's something every good citizen should be doing when it continues to show no real progress. It's great for helping individuals but never seems to address the issues themselves.
I feel like the little Dutch boy, except the wall never seems to get patched. We all just take turns covering the holes.
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Parental involvement in education is important, but a parent doesn't have to be at the school selling pencils out of the PTA room to be "involved." Caring about your kids' grades, knowing who their teachers are, being interested in what they're learning, encouraging reading at home, helping them practice for that spelling test even if you don't want to call out that list of words ONE more time at 8:00 at night when you clear the dishes off the table....those are all examples of being "involved."
Sure, if you have the time and the ability, volunteering at the school is wonderful, but what you do at home with your child is IMO more important.
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Here is the entire news release from Jack O'Connell
Here and here are the two items on the CA State Board of Education agenda for today that deal with our school district.
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Hmm, I haven't read through all of the last two links Mama, but it looks more like that's about creating a new school district than it has anything to do with homeschooling.
It's of interest of me because I used to live in Ventura county. What I'm wondering is how that redistributes tax dolars to schools within the district or if it does.
Obviously since Camarillo is viewed as "wealthier" if the Oxnard school district loses some of that money for the poorer schools, they aren't happy.
I'm kind of interested that they are couching it as a "minority" issue, because that it implies whites are in the majority, and as I recall there isn't actually a white majority in CA anymore.
Would my analysis be correct that the divide is more about a wealth issue than it truly is about a race issue?
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Boy, that 1990-1992 chapter was sure hair-raising. And she didn't even mention Heather Has Two Mommies. Or did that fall in the prior chapter? Understanding why the Christian Homeschoolers suddenly exploded may help understand their motives, and the psychological makeup of the people most likely to participate on that basis.
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I think the next section is equally hair raising, and some of the quotes she uses in it, are direct examples of the reverse discrimination Belle was talking about... but you get to see a bigger picture of *why* it got like that.
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Yeah. It sounds like someone was trying to turn the whole "Home Schooling" movement into the world's largest cult. And I go by the the specific definition of "Cult".
They did not succeed, but those who have been homeschooling are bearing the brunt of that attempt, and living in its shadow.
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There is a lawsuit mentioned in the 1995-1997 section, Rosenberger v. University of Virgnia that I *think* Dagonee may have been involved in. I hope he will let me know if this was the suit, I have a vague recollection we talked about it before, but my memory is very hazy.
quote:Originally posted by BannaOj: I'm kind of interested that they are couching it as a "minority" issue, because that it implies whites are in the majority, and as I recall there isn't actually a white majority in CA anymore.
I thought we still had a few years -- projected, not yet actual.
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Yeah, it has nothing to do with homeschooling, I just didn't think it deserved a new thread. They are trying to create a "unified" school district K-12. I don't know about the tax dollars.
It's been a huge issue for our school district. Our teachers are some of the lowest paid in the county. Their medical benefits are the lowest of the 15 districts in the county. Last week the teachers were out picketing before school.
We were talking to a friend of ours on Monday. She used to homeschool some of her kids. She is a principal of an on-line charter school. She hadn't heard much about the homeschooling stuff going on, but I guess it doesn't affect her anymore. Our pastor's wife is homeschooling their kids through 5th grade. I don't know how they have it set up though.
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In re-reading the 1995-1997 section, (which I hadn't done in a while) it also tells you why many Christian conservatives at that time became so pro G.W. Bush. They felt the Supreme court was threatening their religion and the only way to change it, was to get more conservative judges nominated.
In a way, they have been sucessful, but not as sucessful as they thought they'd be. I think some of G.W.'s judicial nominations where people were going "what the heck was he thinking" were payoffs to this constituency that helped get him in office.
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quote:Originally posted by BannaOj: I'm kind of interested that they are couching it as a "minority" issue, because that it implies whites are in the majority, and as I recall there isn't actually a white majority in CA anymore.
I thought we still had a few years -- projected, not yet actual.
For the whole state I don't know. I do know that the Oxnard Union HS Dist. very much has a white minority. Especially once you remove the high school in Camarillo from the numbers. Probably 2/5 to 1/2 of the Rio Mesa HS (my alma mater) population comes from Camarillo. This and all of the other schools are located in Oxnard which has a majority hispanic population.
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quote:Originally posted by BannaOj: I'm kind of interested that they are couching it as a "minority" issue, because that it implies whites are in the majority, and as I recall there isn't actually a white majority in CA anymore.
I thought we still had a few years -- projected, not yet actual.
It looks like as of 2006, whites were only 44% of the population. They were still the largest group, with (rounding) 35% hispanic, and 13% asian.
It sounds as if the new proposed district would drop to 40% non-white students, which is drastic when you compare to the 93% non-white students everywhere else.
quote: According to the 2006-07 California Basic Educational Data System (CBEDS), the OUHSD has a minority student population of 81.5 percent. Therefore, in accordance with the SBE’s and CDE’s general approach to this issue as expressed in the Handbook for Conducting Racial and Ethic Studies in School Districts, the OUHSD does not currently have a “proportionate (balanced or slightly imbalanced)” minority student population—rather, OUHSD is disproportionately minority. Removal of the PVUSD and the SUSD from OUHSD to form the new CUSD, and withdrawing a significant portion of the OUHSD non-minority student population, will increase the OUHSD minority population percentage to 91.3 percent according to information provided by the OUHSD. The minority student population of the proposed CUSD would be 44.5 percent.
While the statistics are striking, and while I admit I haven't lived there for quite a while, from what I know of the area, I truly don't think it is a racial issue as much as a socio-economic one.
Although those numbers do back up the fact that I actually had a minority experience growing up... I grew up in Oxnard, which clearly has a radically different demographic than Camarillo. When I went to Oklahoma for college, it was a bit of a culture shock to adjust to all the white people... even if I was white myself!
I had a black girl in a university class get in my face once about how I had no idea what it was like to be a minority. As I recall I'd made some sort of statement about what being in the minority feels like when shopping at the grocery store, and she thought I had no right to make such a statement. Admittedly if I'd grown up in Oklahoma she would have been right. But I didn't. There was one other white family that had kids my brothers age that moved in later, but they were pretty much it!
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I still miss hearing the sound of mariachi waft down the streets.
The area we live in, in the Chicago suburbs, has had an influx of hispanic folks. I feel remarkably at home, although the local supermarket doesn't put up Cinco de Mayo decorations yet.
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quote:Originally posted by BannaOj: Although those numbers do back up the fact that I actually had a minority experience growing up... I grew up in Oxnard, which clearly has a radically different demographic than Camarillo. When I went to Oklahoma for college, it was a bit of a culture shock to adjust to all the white people... even if I was white myself!
When I went to college in Indiana, I had the exact same feeling of culture shock. Coming from a high school where 70-80% of the students were Asian (and most of the others Eastern European or Hispanic immigrants), I didn't know what to do with all the white people who didn't even know what a FOB was. (Note: my best friend in high school was so fobby she was a walking stereotype. I'm not hatin' on the 1st gen immigrants here. )
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I suspect where I lived it was more like "Fresh Over the Border" But most of the kids I knew had been born in the U.S., I don't think I knew any that had actually come from Mexico with their parents to begin with. in fact, regardless of their exact legal status, many had parents and families that had been in California longer than mine, since my parents moved in from out of state just before I was born.
In fact I think I probably now more first generation Mexican immigrants here, than I did as a kid in CA.
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My husband's mother was told by her sister in law that if she didn't homeschool, her sons would all grow up to be juvenile delinquents. Their zealotry was kind of a turn off that continues to influence our regard for homeschooling.
Though I was considering homeschooling back when I was first on Hatrack, because our district shut down the open enrollment program. Instead, we moved into a better neighborhood which we couldn't afford, and I wound up having to go back to work. Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by BannaOj: FOB = Fresh off the Boat right?
Yup. I'd guesstimate that about a third of my school was 1st gen, and another third at least was second. Half my friends were dragged off to Chinese Saturday School every week, and you'd hear a lot of languages around the quad. I moved to Germany for a year after graduating 'cause I was so tired of being the only monolingual person around.
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Interestingly, I had the reverse actually, both ways. (i.e. high school was 70-80% white then going to a university that was 70-80% Asian (mostly Mandarin rather than my Cantonese though) ... sort of a reverse culture shock or maybe a double culture shock, I'm confused)
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Silicon Valley. It's like a Mecca for Asian immigrants 'cause they can get anything there that they could in their old countries. I lived a couple blocks from a completely Chinese/Taiwanese shopping center. Live chickens at the grocery store and great cafes where you marked down your order on a pad with only Chinese characters.
Abhi lived in the area for a year (while I was finishing up college), and, boy, was he sad to leave. We still haven't been able to find his favorite Indian soft drink here in DC.
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The Court of Appeals has vacated the ruling and granted a re-hearing.
I can't find any news links on any major outlets about this (of course.) But here are the pages from HSLDA and CHN, two of the larger groups involved in working against this ruling. (I didn't want to link to WND because, yeah... I don't read it. I didn't even click the link that came up when I googled.) Of course I may just suck at finding reputable news stories so feel free to link if you find one.
Anyway, apparently the re-hearing is set for the 23d (of June.) (That would be Monday.)
In other news related to this thread, I took my two and four year olds in for a checkup. Their ped asked what the school situation was going to be for Emma next year (she will be 4 1/2 this fall.) I informed her of our intention to homeschool once she finishes preschool. She said, "Oh, are you a licensed teacher?"
I informed her that no, I was not, yes, it is still legal to homeschool in CA, and listed all the legal avenues to do so. Then I told her that legally Emma doesn't have to be in school until she is 6, so we won't even be "officially" homeschooling until then (although we will, in fact, be starting a kindergarten cirriculum this fall. Bridey will be allowed to sit in and I will also work with her individually on preschool tasks.) She said, "Oh. I didn't know that."
I sure hope she hasn't been telling parents it's illegal to homeschool...
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[QUOTE]Perhaps it is simply because I personally think a strong public education systems is the most important part of a strong community. If the parents who care most about their children's education pull out of the public institutions, it condemns those institutions to a downward spiral that adversely affects the entire community -- even those who home school.
Agreed. It would be nice if parents put their time and energy into volunteering at the public schools and helping to make education better for all kids.
I home-school my son, AND volunteer in classrooms at a local public school, as does my home-schooled son and my Mom (who also provides instruction for my son sometimes). My son also does educational presentations in the public school and volunteers at the public library.
Most of the home-schooling parents in the home-school book group we frequent also spend time volunteering in public schools. Some of them publicly educate some of their kids, and homeschool others.
I have encountered a large number of people who criticize me and my motivations and parenting skills for home-schooling my son, just as you have been criticized for not. I do not interpret that rudeness to be due to the fact that they are NONhome-schoolers, but to the fact that they are rude people. JUST as I do not attribute the rudeness of those who criticize you to the fact that they are home-schoolers but to the fact that they are rude people.
I think you are a good parent doing your best for your kids. I also think I am a good parent doing the best for my kid. Maybe there really isn't much difference between good parents doing the best for their kids- whether they home-school, send their kids to private school or public school, or hire a tutor. (This isn't a challenge to you Belle, just thoughts inspired by your post. I really do think you're a heck of a terrific parent)
Edit to clarify quotes. OK I can't fugure out how to make a quote of someone quoting someone else Posts: 772 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
I *THOUGHT* that i had tried that, but it didn't seem to work, course who knows what weird thing I ACTUALLY typed compared to what I thught I typed.
edit for typos: SIGH Posts: 772 | Registered: Feb 2005
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