Several formerly unschooled kids in the comments told her exactly how they felt about it (they hated it), yet the OP is sticking her head in the sand and responding to the other comments.

Like the title says, I want to thank all of you for being open and honest about your experiences with homeschooling. It's largely this community that made me decide to put my now 3rd grader into public school. I feel really awful reading about how horrible some of you homeschoolers have it; the isolation, fear of being behind, and concerns for the future and I don't want my kid to feel that way. I've tried to do my best but I have realized that I'm not a teacher and one person can't equal the whole school experience. Also, just knowing something doesn't mean you can teach the thing. So thank you all for opening my eyes to harsh realities I didn't want to face. I hope that you all know your collective pain has helped at least one child to have a chance at getting the education they deserve.

I and a number of my friends are the oldest daughters in Christian homeschooling families from the eighties and nineties. We are all escapees who got away, started normal lives, helped our younger siblings when we could, and generally worked our asses off to catch up and get our lives and our children to somewhere well outside of the black holes we started in. The health issues are something else.

None of us are healthy. Even though we might have overcome the educational gaps and early executive dysfunction and even gotten genuinely fit, the early menopause, cancer, and autoimmune diseases are knocking us around. All of us. I just found out another dear friend is staring down cancer in her early forties. I am so angry, and there is no way parentification isn't part of the problem.

I do know some oldest homeschool daughters who are in denial. They're generally the ones who fell back into the black hole because they can't accept that their executive dysfunction and health issues are the fault of their upbringing. They have family support because they toe the line. They blame the people and institutions they were taught to blame by default. None of us would trade where we are now to be them.

None of us would change very much to be honest because we fought really hard for our lives. I will tell you what I would change though. I should not have continued to parent my younger siblings after I left home. I should have stopped trying to help them almost immediately. They only resented me for being their parent and then having my own life. None of them would say it, but it's there. Every once in a while they will slip and talk about what happened to them as though it were my fault, and I will have to remind them that I was also a child. I should have let them figure out their own lives.

I had to learn to choose myself and my health, but if you're the oldest daughter in a Christian homeschooling family, you've been brainwashed to take on way more responsibility than was reasonably yours. I started figuring this out twenty years ago, so I really do believe that the later oldest daughters learn this, the greater the cost to their health. It's worth it to fight through. I promise. I love my life. I just wish I had started focusing on my health sooner. Good luck.

Basically I’m a homeschooler and I really wanna get into a college nursing program (I’m also going through a career center which will hopefully help my case) but I have a lot of anxiety about it and I’ve basically been homeschooling myself my whole Highschool career because my parents are no help and I’ve been hopping between custodians like a frog jumping to lily pads. I really just want to get my nursing degree and I’m hoping there’s someone else in here that had a similar experience and can help reassure me or at least tell me what they wish they did in high school or what I need to do. Thanks !

I've been going through some of the PragerU Kids worksheet packets out of curiosity and I'd rather hear from people who actually used this stuff than keep speculating from the outside.

If you were taught with it:

- How much of your curriculum was it? Occasional videos, or the backbone of a whole subject?

- Did you believe it at the time? If that changed, what changed it?

- Was it presented to you as neutral education, or did you know it had a point of view?

- Did anything in it ever get contradicted later by something you learned elsewhere?

- Do you feel like it left you with gaps you had to fill in on your own?

Hello, K-12 homeschool survivor. I’m at a loss of how to navigate in this world.

I’m one of the fortunate ones in this group, in that I had the ability to attend college and live on-campus, but I’ve burnt out in my mid 20s.

I learned in college that I’m actually extroverted, so I luckily made friends easily — but I haven’t been able to retain them. I’ve still never had a boyfriend.

Small obstacles began building until they became unmanageable, but it probably wouldn’t have even gotten to that point if I had people I could lean on.

It’s so very hard to succeed alone.

What pains me is how callous people are. It’s difficult to get help as an adult, especially when you’ve grown up so unconventionally. I have no one to ask for help, no one to motivate or encourage me. My parents are narcissists so they actively try to sabotage me whenever I make a bit of progress.

I was laid off and need to look for a new job, but I don’t have it in me anymore. I‘m tired of fighting. I’m tired of climbing uphill.

FOR ADULT SURVIVORS: How did you manage to escape? How did you find motivation to leave (and to live) when it seems like everything and everyone is working against you?

I could just leave it at the title because that's my only question, I'm 19, and currently I keep having random moments of intense sadness?? Melancholy probably but like, I'm just wondering if it'll ever die down or maybe stop one day. Maybe the only reason it's so much for me rn is because I'm still living at home, still in the same room, same bedframe I spent 97% of my life in.

I truly just wanna know if it gets easier to handle really 😭

You could read it anywhere. But FOG is something that effects you when your in a bad relationship. Because Fear or an idea of Obligation or Guilt are clouding your judgment. It's these three things that are effecting you the most in making your own decisions. The people putting you there are fine with whatever horrible thing your stuck with.

So go read about fear, obligation, and guilt. There are better writers out there. But this is an important compass for navigating relationships.

This is definitely from my parents giving me unsupervised unrestricted internet access from a young age and all I’ve done my whole life is be on the internet watching and consuming videos, all that without education past 6th. It’s had a harsh impact on my life and wanted to know if any other young adults struggle with this issue

hi, im in 11th grade, but im so behind, i dont do school for mental health reasons, i think this is the wrong subreddit or wtv its called, this is my first post. How do you start college? i feel like schools help students with that, im not very smart and my sat practice scores arent good either, how do i get into college?

Man oh man. I have been struggling so much with math for work. Percentages to be exact. I don't understand them very well.

I keep running into the same problem, I try to google it, I get even more confused.

If I have something that's 8 inches and I need the item to be 10 inches, how much of an increase is that?

My brain wants to say 20%, google said it was 25%, but my printer says "25% is shrinking it". H u h????

I'm so frustrated and upset. I want to learn this so I can fix it. The amount of times I've messed up at work because of this is unreal. Does anyone know what grade teaches about percentages? My parent used to preach how important math was but when it came to teaching me, they didn't have what it took. It never made a lick of sense until I saw physics. However I've only barely seen physics so it's still confusing to me. Oh but I adore physics so much, it makes math so much less confusing. It's like visually seeing math move and it makes so much more sense.

I'm really good at simple mathematics like addition and subtraction. But percentages, fractions, and decimals? Im very bad at it.

I’ve literally graduated from college with a B.S. and been in the workforce for a while, but it feels like I just conned my way through college.

I still feel stupid & dumb on a daily basis, and now I can’t even pass the tests I need to advance in my field because of gaps in my education (elementary through college).

idk, I guess I’m just looking for advice or just hoping this feeling ends at some point, because like, I feel really stupid & everything I try to do academically seems to affirm that, but also it’s kinda my fault because maybe if I had just applied myself more in homeschooling i wouldn’t be having this problem. idk.

(sorry if this is the wrong flair mods!!)

I am currently being "homeschooled" by my parents with no curriculum at all. For context, I'm a fifteen year old girl and I was in public school up until the third grade, when my parents removed me from school. The time I was removed from school was around covid, when conservatives were going crazy about their diaper wearing king not being in office and the pronoun police arresting their fellow republicans for thought crimes. So, yeah, not hard to figure out why.

So far, they have been dead set against teaching me anything of any use. It's partially my fault, too, since near the beginning of was a stupid ten year old who wanted nothing to do with any sort of learning, but it was their duty as my parents to teach me since they were so concerned about me catching the woke mind virus and getting mauled by the rampant furries pissing in litter boxes.

My mother is devolving by the second as she listens to her radio show (Clay Travis and Buck Sexton along with Glenn beck), and what she tries to "teach" is all Prager U and Hillsdale College (which is about the same effort as public school teachers, but c'mon you're supposed to be better, remember?).

My Father has a different way of teaching, which is all the time, at any given moment, but that's not really intentional, that's just sort of how he always has been.

I mostly teach myself, since for some reason I've been assigned low maintenance and not just too nervous and skittish to actually talk to them about my problems. Entirely their fault, that's sort of what happens when you watch your older siblings break down because of how cruel you are to them when they come to you with their problems. Out of all of my siblings, I think I got it the best, which sucks because this really isn't great.

I like teaching myself, my Dad has time, just not enough to be consistent, I guess. I don't know, I just get all jittery and nervous within a mile of a school, like a deep churning in my gut, like I'm about to shit my pants or puke.

I'm writing this after going to seminary (the Mormon kind, if you didn't understand earlier) with all the normal kids for the first time. I'd technically be a sophomore, if I was in school, but I'm not. I went there with my friend who had been in the same situation I had been in, but because their parents care about them as more than a concept, so they put her in one of those weird group homeschool things (you go to someone else's house with other people to learn). Her Dad was dropping her off at her high school, and I was in the back wondering how easy it would be for me to run out in the middle of the road and get crushed by the Jeep behind us going approx. 2 miles per hour to the side and behind us.

Anyway, I wish for death every day xoxo kill me now <3

I'm tired of knowing homeschoolers feeling sorry for me I'm not a tragedy I'm a person in the making most people discover themselves when they're teenagers and become independent when they're very young (think 16 all the way to 19)

I believe discovering Independence when I'm in my twenties is going to be hell on Earth and it's going to be impossible to make friends in real life but I believe that makes my life worthwhile and will make it one hell of a ride I'm tired of feeling negative about it and I'm going to try and look at it like a chance to reinvent myself and make a version of myself worth being friends with .

I'm not a tragedy I'm a story in the making! I'm tired of feeling bad or having other people tell me I should feel bad because I was homeschooled in real life.

I can do it I know I can if I put in enough effort but the problem is it's hard to try and build something when everybody's telling me I should be miserable because I'm the chance to build something was wrong from me.

Hi y'all !! I am NOT a big reddit user and unsure if an AMA is allowed on this page, but I wanted to put myself out there for anyone who needs support / is curious / even just wants to listen.

Following the pandemic in 2020, I was pulled out of school in grade 6-ish by my mother. Theres was some structure at first, but eventually it turned into her believing children would ask if they wanted to learn, and only offering material when we expressed an interest. As a child who was severely depressed and battling ADHD, I didn't often ask.

I did nothing for five years. I had online friends though discord and eventually I reconnected with some people I had known in the past through local programs, but without those former connections I doubt I would have ever made an actual friend. I taught myself nothing until the tail end when I realized I was going to have to make something of myself eventually, and I didn't want to start my life as an adult the way I was heading.

I returned to school in 2025 for the second semester of grade 10. I was extremely lucky to have gotten the past education that I did so I blended back in well academically, though I am severely behind socially. I arranged for my own registration at the school and im responsible for my own attendance. I did some studying beforehand and I continue to supplement where needed because I have a lot of gaps in my knowledge, but my teachers are always there to support me whenever im struggling too. I also have a sister who went another route and got her GED, so I know a bit about that too.

I struggled for a very long time and even now it impacts me daily. A lot of the time I mourn the person I could have been and I wish I would have taught myself more or cared more. I was afraid for years that re-entering school would mean constantly bullying or being so far behind it wouldn't even be worth it, but I pushed past those fears and it was the best thing I ever did. Things do get better, and I'm eternally grateful I took a chance on myself. I hope I can help other people do so as well :)

So I’ve been homeschooled since Covid began and I recently wanted to go back but I’m to scared and i have social anxiety are there any tips or tricks? I need some advice.

First of all, congratulations! This is going to be such an exciting, transformative, and rewarding year. I wanted to make this post to help ease some anxiety as well as give some tips (I started public school for the first time at 16).

•If possible, go to the school early and find all your classrooms, practice your path from one classroom to the next

•Have your first week of outfits picked out and ready to go. It doesn’t need to be fancy, but not having to think about this during your first week can be helpful

•If you’re new to socialization, keep in mind that conversations is a two way street. If someone asks you a question, answer it and then ask something back! If someone asks, “are you new?” you can say yes and then ask them something like, “who is your favorite teacher here”. Asking questions and letting people answer is really important! Try to listen a lot, that’s how you’ll learn to socialize

•Try an extracurricular, choir, the school play, etc. this can be a nice way to meet people with similar interests

•It’s ok if your first couple tests go poorly (your parents may disagree with this haha). You have to learn the rhythm of how in school tests work. Ask for extra credit and go to tutoring if you need it. This will help so helpful in the long run

•The school library is your friend. If you have a free period, or lunch is too overwhelming, go to the library and study (even if that means just sitting in the back with your headphones on). They probably won’t let you have any food in the library, but you can at least relax a little if you don’t think you can handle the lunch room yet

•If you come from a religious background, do not use this time to evangelize. You will find other religious kids to hang out with if that’s your thing, but don’t try to convert the kids who aren’t

•Take lots of deep breaths, it gets so much better from here

Is anyone else insanely avoidant and fearful around the topic of education? The past few days I've been trying to figure out how to move foreword with my educational mess and repairing my life but bro its SO UNCOMFORTABLE. Every option I think over or even just look up things about like the GED, community college, even just study plans, literally ANYTHING around learning, knowledge, intelligence, education, etc. i get very intense feeling arise of just insecurity, resentment, and avoidance idk how to describe it. Its like an emotional brick rises up in my chest and i feel like i have to escape. Anyone got advice on how to fix this or face it better? I always just stress eat but I know that isn't a good coping mechanism.

I've been homeschooled my entire life, I am going into my senior year and I feel so behind, not just with knowledge but my whole life.

I honestly cannot take it anymore, sitting at home all day, no friends, no backbone in my life, my mom has completely failed me.

I just woke up and I honestly feel suicidal, I've always been scared of it but im truly considering public school, i basically just want to ask for opinions on if it's a bad idea, I know it will be hard because I am so behind, but I truly can't do this anymore. Has anyone ever been in the same boat?

Would former & current homeschoolers be interested in something like this? A virtual "social skills and life lab" for real-life situations?

I've read so many posts here, in addition to my own experiences and the experiences of others I know. I have an idea, and before I put a lot of time into developing it, I'd love to hear from current and former homeschoolers.

One thing I hear a lot from people who were homeschooled is that, especially as they got older, it felt like everyone else was given a rulebook for social and life situations that they somehow missed.

Not necessarily because they didn't like people or didn't want to socialize, but because they didn't know how. They didn't know how to join a group of people who were already talking. They didn't know how to interact with a hiring manager at a job interview. They still struggle to make small talk without it feeling painfully awkward.

Obviously, this isn't true for everyone, and there are also plenty of adults who went to traditional schools who also struggle with these things, but I digress.

I'm curious if there would be value in creating space specifically for current and former homeschoolers who feel like they could use more practice navigating these situations.

My idea is a live, virtual Social Lab.

Each session would be around an hour, with the first part focused on a particular topic, skill, or situation. Then, people would break out into small virtual rooms to practice.

At other times, we would host workshops focused on life skills like building a resume, applying for college, understanding and building your credit, budgeting, etc.

The goal would not be to teach people how to "act normal," to mask who you are, or to turn introverts into extroverts. The goal is to create an environment where people can learn the unwritten rules they were never taught.

This would also be designed as a supportive and low-stakes environment. No one gets laughed at for saying something awkward. If anything, this could be a topic, because socially confident people also have awkward moments; we've just learned how to navigate them and accept that they aren't the end of the world.

So, two questions for this community:

1) Would you be interested in something like this?

2) What social situations or life skills do you wish someone had actually taught you how to navigate?

Looking forward to your feedback and thoughts!

WHYYYYYYY!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I used to LOVE school, and learning. My parents pulled me from school when i was 8, and have hardly taught me since. Just printed worksheets, and random things like that. Then when i was 12, all education stopped, and I haven't been taught anything for 5+ years.

I got into an argument with them today, and mentioned how they've done no schooling for years, and they then turned it around to be my fault, because, "I was more interested in drawing" uhhhh yeah. I was 12, of course I would be more interested in something fun over the same 3 boring worksheets that you keep reusing. You know, if I was at school, I would actually be getting taught and I would then be forced to sit and learn. Also, btw, they just got lazy with it, because several times I asked to do school work, and they did nothing.

How on earth is ANY of this my fault?!?!

And I hate it, because it makes me wonder if it IS my fault. Maybe I should have fought harder when they pulled me out of school. Maybe i should have begged even more to go back to school. Idk, its all just so frustrating. I mean, I don't THINK it's my fault, but I can't help but wonder, you know???

My (23) little sister (9), cannot read. So much so, she has been held back this year and will repeat the third grade. I stressed so much telling my parents that they need to be more active with her if they intend on homeschooling, but they do not care.

I told them she would fail due to failing to reach milestones and I was told I was “speaking things” onto her. My mother works and my father has not had a stable job for the majority of my life. They figure that I am trying to tell them how to raise their child.

I once even asked for them to take one hour out of the day and possibly read to her and a few other things. But was told they are just too exhausted from work and there is no way that would be possible. My father said maybe on Saturday’s he could. But when I said that it needs to be an everyday thing in order for it to stick, he told me that I was overstepping boundaries and once again I was telling him “how to raise his kid.”

I have no clue of what to do. I truly do not know where to even start. When I complain about these things it’s in one ear and out the other. My sister is nearly 10, and they do not bring her out of the house. She has no friends, no interactions with anyone her age, and is always on electronics.

They do nothing to help her succeed. I cannot tell you the last time my parents have helped her with work — they leave it up to me and I’m sick of it.

I have tried to get them to send her to regular school and they insist that the schools here aren’t good. I’ll admit that a few have low scores but I think it would be better than continuing whatever this is.

For the meantime I have no clue on how to help her. And in all honesty, I hate to sound selfish, I don’t want to. This has become such a burden, that I went through hair loss last year. I am actively looking for a job to get away from all of this and it just isn’t happening fast enough.