Asklemmy

First I want to make clear that it is not an option for everybody and I understand what a huge privilege it is to be able to do this in our terms. For some families/ kids, school is/ can be beneficial.

I worked in schools for many years as did my SO, we did our best and had rewards and dissapointments alike and when we decided to start a family we knew we wanted different for our children.

It was a very unpopular opinion to not send our offspring to regular school, both our families were strongly against it and that filled us with doubt at first since we had never heard of anyone doing it. But we kept strong knowing the things we didn't want and understand that people can be afraid of new things.

It was also hard to find a community that had what we wanted: Non religious, science based, Non violent parenting. We found out the hard way that some families use unschool/homeschool as an excuse to abuse their children in horrific ways.

Socializing was another concern at first, but we sorted out easily IMO with play groups and whatever classes they needed/wanted. Our rule was to choose one class for fun and one for a must so there has been a high rotation over the years: Swimming, gymnastics, theatre, painting,scuba diving, sculpting, horse backriding, yoga, ballet, judo,violin,karate,piano,etc. Last year kid started attending Scouts meetings and is loving it so far.

For academic learning we let kid choose whatever they feel like learning and tailor lessons around the whole thing: One time for biology, for example, when insects were the interest, we went ahead and volunteered at the local botanical garden and got one on one time wih an enthomologist who taught us many interesting things. Me and my SO both have Phd degrees in our areas and that has helped too in a way.

This way of learning has worked beautifully! Kid is eager to learn different kinds of stuff and has passed the obligatory governement evaluations with flying colors, not that we care about grades, but for some people those are super important.

As far as making them do this, we don't. School is always on the table if they feel inclined to go at any time but so far, we have been school free for years.

The only downside I can see so far is that a lot of content in media is designed/catered to te school experience because that is what most people's experience growing up looks like so sometimes, especially when they were little, we had to explain what a hallway pass was, for example. This has gotten easier with time and since kid has friends who attend regular school it is not so foreign anymore.

ETA that this choice has not been a walk in the Park at all! Doing it entails much more work than we thought at first and it can be frustrating at times (mostlystuff regarding bureaucracy) , but the benefits surpass the downsides by far. Economically speaking it is also a challenge, some people have the idea that unschooling is cheaper than sending kids off to school. It is not. Emotionally speaking, it can also be a challenge for sure since, as a parent, you have to be always "on". That is why we have "me" days around here so nobody loses their minds.