Have been very interesting and different. It has also made me know who of my IRL friends reads my blog. 
So my Mom basically laughed out loud and laughed a lot. This did not surprise me. This response really comes because she knows how T1 is about homework and she can’t imagine teaching him at home. But as I explained about the budget cuts in CA and the number of kids who may be in his class and that we don’t know what kind of teacher he will get and that if he has so much homework at night with an inflexible teacher, that could be a really bad situation. So then she started thinking about it. I talked about letting T1 lead in the learning and choosing the subjects. She admitted that might work for him. Then she told me about some positive homeschooling California programs she has heard about. So I think that she would be supportive if at some point we do choose to home school.
Jenn – Well, I was scared about telling her, because she is a pretty staunch anti-home schooler. So we talked about some of her issues as we walk in the morning (did I mention I have been walking, it helps to do it with a friend! We sometimes combine scripture study with it too, read a conference talk and discuss it while we walk) What about supplementing… this is her great idea. It is a great idea, except they are so burnt out on school that they don’t want to do anything extra, homework is enough extra and it isn’t even fun. What about socialization… well there are activities they can do with other home schoolers and sports and scouts and church, etc. There were other things, but these are the two big ones. But I know if it came down to me choosing to do it, she would be supportive, because she KNOWS I wouldn’t do this unless I felt like it was something I NEEDED to do.
My Scrapbook Posse, very supportive, giving ideas, resources, letting me know that whatever I choose to do will be great. They know and understand it wouldn’t be easy, but they are also for the most part far away and it won’t really effect them personally. Unlike Jenn, who it would probably effect the most, next to me. 
My Aunt Kathi who home schools. I thought of calling her pretty quickly after I started pondering, but I am getting over this cold and talking just isn’t fun. But she e-mailed me and I know I would of course have her support!
I joined some home school e-mail groups and am of course getting great support there. A lady in my church home schools and she lent me a GREAT book. Pocketful of Pinecones, which was very inspirational and helped me realize I need to listen to my boys more and encourage their love of nature and really have this attitude of homeschooling them, whether or not I keep them in the public schools. After hearing boys talking at me for so many years, I have sort of tuned them out. So I am now LISTENING to them again and enjoying them more.
Brenda was great, I couldn’t really tell if she was for it or against it, but she just asks great questions that make me think more, which of course I love!
Other friends who I tell, are fairly non-judgemental (maybe because I say I am thinking about it rather than saying I AM doing it?) And say things along the line of, “Let me know what you decide and how it goes for you.”
So I wonder if I can correlate this to responses when a mom decides to have home birth? This will have to be a different post, but I know they get varied responses from their friends and family.
We’ve been homeschooling for nine years. Our daughters have never been in public schools. Here are some of the things I like about homeschooling:
1) Our daughters have stayed close to each other. I’ve noticed that many children spend so much time at school with kids their own age that the relationships with their siblings deteriorate.
2) Our daughters think learning is often cool. I graduated from high school thinking learning was a chore, something you had to do, not something that was fun and enjoyable.
3) Our daughters are learning a lot. We just got the test scores back from some standardized tests they took last month. In most everything they are at 85% or above. Except for spelling, one of the girls was at 12%. It is an area we’ve been working on, and we’ll do more this fall.
4) We have more time to do scripture study with our daughters. The typical student in a public school only spends a couple hours a day really learning. The rest of the time is waiting in line, waiting for a teacher, recess, lunch, being distracted, being bored, and so on. Our daughters are often done with their lessons around three, which included scripture study.
5) Our daughters have very little interest in the latest trends, they don’t bother us to buy them stuff, because they don’t have any peers telling them they’ll only be cool if they have the right clothes or the right gadgets.
Good luck in making your decision about homeschooling.
By: henry on July 22, 2008
at 2:13 pm