Top 10 EPIC worst advice I have gotten from fellow homeschoolers!
I have read and written articles on how those outside homeschooling community can say some really strange or even hurtful things. What if the person saying those strange and hurtful things are from inside the homeschooling community?
That can really shake your confidence…. or at least several of the following did for me. When I was new to homeschooling I had a very thin skin and was so sensitive to everyone else’s opinion. Now I have a much thicker skin and can laugh at these comments.
1) “There is no such thing as dyslexia. You just aren’t using the right reading curriculum!” This coming from a person that had just told the group their child learned to read on his own.
2) “I can cure your child with our special program in under 12 months.” That sounds great but you are making that statement without ever having even talked to my child or make an evaluation. That smacks of quackery…. Tread carefully friends. Use your common sense when faced with educational programs or supplement regimes. Contact the Better Business Bureau and double check before putting your money down.
3) “You shouldn’t be homeschooling.” This can be based on the belief that mom or child is too sick to homeschool. Facebook makes it so much easier for people that have never even been to your home to pronounce such judgements. Gotta love Facebook :-/
4) “You can’t homeschool a special needs child you aren’t smart enough.” This came from a person that was in college learning to be a special education teacher. That comment had thousands of dollars and years of her time wrapped up in it.
5) “If you just set a tight schedule and keep to it everything will work, eventually.” Schedules and routines do help us. Do they make the world all better, no.
6) “I hate ____ curriculum. You can’t possible teach your children anything with that!” Smile nicely and continue on the your chosen path.
7) I was given a book to read that was totally opposite of our learning style and personalities. Then told to be more like them. Hmmm… I guess if you don’t walk in these shoes you just aren’t going to get it. That’s okay there are days I don’t get it. I just pray extra hard and we come out just fine!
8) You can’t homeschool a child with special needs without your “normal” kids suffering. The advice was given off-handed as if everyone knows this, from a non-special needs parent. And DON’T get me started on calling 1 of my lovely kids “normal” and another not. Shame on you!
9) “I am helping homeschoolers with their paperwork so I can show them where they are failing.” WHAT?! yeap… that person was using their position assisting homeschoolers to discourage them from homeschooling. Then encourage them back to ‘real school’.
10) “Your poor parenting caused this ‘so-called’ autism problem” oh yes, they went there and even used air quotes! <slap forehead>
Friends the best advice I have for all this… Be nice! Listen more than you talk. Each family is completely different so don’t judge!
They are all so sad, but number ten makes me want to cry.
#2 I agree completely! #10 makes me mad and sad at the same time. That’s such an uninformed opinion of what causes autism and it’s been disproved.
They are all awful! I don’t have an autistic child, but I do have a child with life threatening allergies, and others with severe food allergies. So, I get #10, too. That is ! We’ve even had people give her contaminated food to prove it (Although, Thank God! she is well-trained enough not to eat anything without checking with Mommy!) I also ave heard #1,3,5 & 8. Oh, and this stellar one: “If you had enough faith, God would heal her.” Umm, right.
Listen and Walk on. Pray and be gracious, they know not what they say.
I will add number 11 from our real life.
“You are going to make them fail in college.”
The people who told my children that were public and private school advocates, yeah “real” school. And they really believed themselves. It really set up a mental block for my students who then feared college. I finally convinced my oldest to enroll by telling her we would go ahead and get her enrolled at the same time in the college tutoring assistance lab. 3 weeks into her first semester she was asked to be the tutor. 6 years later, both of my children have college degrees, (and jobs in their field) and their children who were in “real school” do not. They have told me several times since that they wish they had homeschooled. They just did not know…..
I thank the Lord for the road He took us on, which was not always easy, but He made a way even through childhood illness, reading disorders, dysgraphia, and all sorts of bumps in the road. We made it through. You can too.
OH sometimes people irritate me! How about these? “ADHD is something doctors made up to make money”, and “You should never take your kids to so called therapists. You’re just getting the state involved where they don’t need to be!” (This from the mother of a child with Down’s Syndrome who, she freely admitted, would have been much further ahead had she gotten him early intervention for PT/OT and Speech therapy in a birth to 3 program.) She was criticizing our choice to get these services for our two adopted, drug affected special needs kids. Because of course everyone knows that Occupational Therapists in private therapy offices work for the government, right? *eye roll*
We have heard many of these, having two children with special needs. We have been told we can’t do it. I want to plop my 7 year old with Autism and dyslexia down next to them to read them a story, you know, the one that wouldn’t get any help if they were in public school because our local school has no program or help for kids with dyslexia.
I am so tired of people judging that which they have no clue about. Has anyone ever asked their teachers in their public schools for a high school and college transcript? Why not? If we, people who took honors courses in high school, were on the honor roll, graduated top of their class, had near perfect GPA in college adults are too dumb to educate our children, then surely they must have MUCH higher requirements for their public school teachers and have seen their transcripts to check for their grades, awards, and so on. If not, then you are speaking on that which you don’t understand…which doesn’t make you sound smart.
Yes – #10 – we were told my daughter’s reading issues were due to our lack of “consequencing,” though the person saying it had never met us before nor been to our home. However, that comment was made by a public school “professional,” and was the final straw, leading us INTO homeschooling. Never looked back!