An Experience Lost Is An Experience Gained.

We began homeschooling when our oldest boy was 7 in second grade. While we had talked about doing it since before he even started school, it took a few years of public school for us to make the leap into the world of homeschooling. For most people, its seems the biggest problem with homeschooling is the loss of the social experience of public school. I actually had a great time in public school, until second grade, then it all went to shit. I hated second grade, I hated all of middle school (sixth, seventh, and eighth grades), and most of high school. Regardless of how I felt about my public school experience, however, it was important to my development.
The two things people often overlook is, firstly, that education is more important than a social experience, and secondly, that every experience lost is an experience gained. That last statement is true every minute of everyday of your lives. For everything you do, you are not doing something else. Every thought that goes through your mind is a fork in your road. You simply cannot go through life always wondering what is on the other path, the path you choose to leave behind.
My kids are missing out on everything that would happen in public school, but they are doing things at home they would not be doing if they were in school all day. They may miss out on recess, making friends and enemies, detention, field trips, noisy bus rides, and homework, but these experiences are not lost, just replaced with family trips to museums and landmarks, making friends at the local park, watching cartoons until the sun comes up, and spending the day living life with their family instead of in a classroom.

Until next time... no regrets.