Setting them up to Fail

Yesterday, someone told Rick that home schooling our children was "setting them up to fail."

Many people do not support home schooling, and most of the time comments like these roll right off my back and are not given a second thought.

Until yesterday.  For some reason, I let this comment clog up my brain the rest of the afternoon and into this morning.

Truthfully, failing would be saying that we are home schooling then not doing any schooling at all.

This person sited how we need to provide the children with more social interaction.  This is the most common anti-home-school argument.  It is also the one with the least merit.

When you see our list of our children's social interaction opportunities, you just might put us on the "hyper-scheduled" list.  Some "experts" feel that children should have no more than 1 extra activity per season.  So often I want to ask "So, which way do you want it, people? More or less?"

I'll use my oldest child as an example.

Kid #1
4-H:  One interaction per month-either a meeting, service project, or trip.
Music:  Two hour long lessons per month.
Swimming:  1 per week-when finished, replaced with another learning opportunity.
Church:  2 per week.
Field trips:  About 1 per month with the home school group.

These are just the scheduled items. This does not include time spent with other families for fun, time spent with cousins, time spent working outside with us and the hired help, or any interactions with the neighbors and people we do business with.

We are not locking these kids inside the house and not letting them see the light of day.  In fact, if we spend any more time away from the home,  we might not even be considered a home school.

Our kids interact with youth in their age range as well as adults.  They are exposed to different generations, backgrounds, and characters (to say the least!).  They are not confined to the same age group all day long.

This reminded me of when we put together our plan for this farm.  Less than a handful of people were supportive.  Most everyone else said "You'll never make it".  I reminded myself that I did not listen to those people then-I knew our plan would work.  So I'll try to not let this bother me now.   From the list of options concerning our children's education, we've picked home schooling.  Later on we may or may not pick something else.

If I had the chance to ask this person in what areas he thought our children were going to fail, I would.   Would it be work? Relationships? Personal development? Are any of us perfect in those areas, or do we fail from time to time?  Every time one of my kids slip up as an adult (they will) is it going to be blamed on the home schooling? Really?

Be careful how you judge people and the decisions they make.  Rick did not tell this person that they were failing their own children by sending them to school.  We realize that there are many different ways to get from point A to point B, and there may come a time when we pick a different route...they may too.

I couldn't help it...