Topic : 12/26 "I Am Right!"

Quote From: so_dak_kid

 I heard that Dr. Phil talked about homeschooling on his show today. He talked to someone who was interested in homeschooling their child. He told them that homeschooling up to eighth grade was fine for the child socially, but through high school it damages the child socially. I completely disagree. I am 16 years old and I have been homeschooled all of my life. My older brother and sister were also homeschooled. Right now both of them are at college. They have gone far and are not letting anything hold them back. As for me, I am involved in youth group at my church. I am heavily involved in the local theater. I have been playing soccer almost since I had enough strength to stub my toe Those are just a few areas in which I am involved with people my own age. And in all spots I have made friends that I will not lose for a lifetime. Friends that go to public school and friends that are also homeschooled. I play the violin and piano and have been in music competitions and recitals. In the summer I run my own lawn service. I keep up with all twenty customers mostly middle are or older and have had them for several years now. I am able to talk with them either about how tall they want their grass cut or about their recent trip across the state and I have made many adult friends from that experience. Homeschooling has not in the least bit held me back socially. In fact I believe that it has helped me grow up in the real world and not in the noisy hallways of a public school being raised and molded by my prres. I believe that homeschooling is what you make it and  what the parents make it. If the parents seclude their children from the world then I think that is not helping the children. But if the parents, like my parents did, let their children do what interests them then I believe that that homeschooling in a great thing.

Quote From: leezo13

     

  

  The outcome of homeschooling, I think, would be just as the father has expressed.  I am a great-grandmother but still working full time and I do have an opinion that agrees with the father on this subject.  Though I was not homeschooled, I did go to a private church school and my parents paid alot for this, although I loved school, later in life I was wishing I had of had the experience of going to a public school and I do believe that I would have learned alot more about life!!!! 

I have not had a healthy or lasting relationship, I am very shy, I never learned to dance or express my feelings about anything and now that it is nearly too late have just come to learn alot of  things about life I should have known years ago.  I attribute this to being in a small, small school, not having any of the normal experiences that teenagers have and not learning how to stand up for myself or be outgoing and it has caused me alot of problems in my life.  

I think every child/teenager should get the experiences of life in a public school and if the temptations are there that the mother is expressing they will have to learn to say 'no', being sheltered at home with none of these experiences is not the way to learn about them.  There are alot of fun things in school that this child would never experience if they never went to school and learned to socialize and it will tell on them later in life, believe it, it's true. 

  

Quote From: collinstl

Hi everyone!  Dr. Phil, I want to meet Mark!  I am a 35 year-old female and I am saving myself for my husband.  Please note that I said "husband" and not "soul mate."  My Christian beliefs do play a big role in my decision to wait.  However, there are many practical reasons to wait.  I would not want to get HIV or a STD.  I also believe 100% that there are life-long emotional consequences to sleeping with partners that you might not marry.  Many people don't even recognize the consequences. Their issues come out "sideways" in the form of marital problems, sexual addictions, unresolved guilt for past behaviors and sexual performance issues.  People have told me such things as, "You need to make sure your sexually/physically 'right' for each other."  Give me a break!!!  You will know if you are sexually compatible during that first kiss. 

  

I know that the pros/cons of maintaining your virginity were not really the issue today.  However, I wish Dr. Phil had touched more on the pros/cons instead of just saying, "It's a virtuous thing to do."  Our society is sooooo hung up on instant gratification. We don't have any concept of commitment.  Dr. Phil, it's NOT just about being "virtuous!"   All said and done, Dr. Phil YOU ROCK!!! 

Quote From: leezo13

     

  

  The outcome of homeschooling, I think, would be just as the father has expressed.  I am a great-grandmother but still working full time and I do have an opinion that agrees with the father on this subject.  Though I was not homeschooled, I did go to a private church school and my parents paid alot for this, although I loved school, later in life I was wishing I had of had the experience of going to a public school and I do believe that I would have learned alot more about life!!!! 

I have not had a healthy or lasting relationship, I am very shy, I never learned to dance or express my feelings about anything and now that it is nearly too late have just come to learn alot of  things about life I should have known years ago.  I attribute this to being in a small, small school, not having any of the normal experiences that teenagers have and not learning how to stand up for myself or be outgoing and it has caused me alot of problems in my life.  

I think every child/teenager should get the experiences of life in a public school and if the temptations are there that the mother is expressing they will have to learn to say 'no', being sheltered at home with none of these experiences is not the way to learn about them.  There are alot of fun things in school that this child would never experience if they never went to school and learned to socialize and it will tell on them later in life, believe it, it's true. 

  

Quote From: wildkardde

 I am a 21 year old virgin and definetely believe it is the right thing to wait.  However, out in the world it isn't a popular desicion and most often gets someone, myself included, labeled.  I also think that some people who are older virgins may not have chosen this for themselves.  Even if I had not chosen to wait, there is nothing that has ever happened to me that would have ever brought me to having sex.   Some people, myself included, may just not have a "soul mate" or whatever you want to call the person.  As much as we may like it or not.

Quote From: drewbob

I have to say that I was both very pleased and very upset by Dr. Phil's comments on Homeschooling.  At first, I thought his comments were right on.  However, when he said that after the 8th grade there are problems with socializing I was horrified!  My husband is a Youth Pastor and we have been in GA, AL and FL (our home state) and we have encountered teenagers from public schools, private schools and home schools.  When we first married my husband had asked me to consider homeschooling and I thought that he was crazy.  Until then, I had only heard about homeschooling in the context that a girl in my high school had been terminally ill and she had been dual enrolled.  After meeting a MULTITUDE of homeschooled teenagers (and their younger and older siblings) I was won over.  Without fail homeschooled kids were MUCH better socialized, better able to interact with both their peers AND adults, better able to give and keep their word, better able to shoulder responsibilities and in ALL instances were more likely to be leaders in the church groups.  I am now Homeschooling my kindergarten age son and will homeschool my other 3 children who are younger.  Yesterday a man that I am in business with questioned why I was homeschooling and I was surprised (as I seem to always be) at the lack of knowlege that there is out there about homeschooling.  He wanted to know how we "socialize" our kids.  He also wanted to know what our reason was for homeschooling.  When I explained that our kids are involved in church, soccer, t-ball, Tae Kwon Do and that they have friends, brothers and sisters and cousins he seemed surprised.  As if all we did was keep our kids locked in the house.  When I explained to him that our basic reason for homeschooling was our Christian beliefs and our desire to shield our children from things that we felt that they did not need to know at this age he told me that we were doing a diservice to our children and that they would have to face those things at some time.  I told him that I know that at some point in my childrens' lives they will face the world and I intend to prepare them.  I want to give them the tools that they need to stand up and face the world on their terms.  To the professor that said that homeschooled kids are "stubborn and inflexible" I say "GOOD"!  They have been grounded and they know themselves and what they stand for.  BRAVO to those parents!  Expecting children to grow up as fast as we are has taken away an innocence that I desperately miss.  By having to worry about what our children will be exposed to in school we have to teach about things that they are just too young to need to know.  I know that there are people out there that think that that is a very simplistic view, but that is how I feel.  It is my JOB to protect my children until they have the resources to do it themselves and I do not think that at 5, 6, 7 or 8 years old that should be their job.   

Dr. Phil, please look harder at the idea that children begin to have socialization problems after 8th grade if they are homeschooled.  I worry that parents that are sacrificing and taking the hard road of homeschooling will bow to that theory and give up on the great work that they are doing. 

Quote From: kbreau

 What is the huge deal? If you love someone then have sex... what are people trying to prove by waiting until they are 30 and 35? I don't think there are as many consequences as you think. If you love someone and have "protection" then I don't think anything will be regretted. I think you are trying too hard to wait for that prefect someone... and you maybe never find someone if you look at the everything from your perspective.

Quote From: seasalt

Over the years I have found that the majority of people who make comments to me after discovering that I homeschool, go right for the socialization thing.  Now, I don't know how much research this folks have done, but the family members who have made comments, including my Ph.D. brother, go right for the socialization thing and I KNOW that they have done no research, save perhaps reading an anti homeschooling article which they readily agree with without doing any 'research' of their own.   

  

I agree with this writer that parents who struggle with the feeling of whether they can homeschool through high school will give up due to what you have said Dr. Phil, about socialization.  Bottom line anyway when it comes to school is that we send our children there to be educated, not socialized.  In addition to that, basically they are around those who are the same age as they are and I wonder how that develops their social skills?  Further, in high school you have the seniors looking down on the juniors looking down on the sophmores looking down on the freshman, you have cliques, you have bullies, you have mockery and tripping and other assorted problems that rob many young people of the attention they need to get the education parents send their children to school for.  If that is socialization, it is an unhealthy socialization.   The socialization is what our children do when they interact with various factions of society, right, not just their friends?  So that would be going to the mall with their friends, bowling, skating, out to eat, birthday parties, etc. It is hard for me to think of the movies as socialization since it is passive with no interaction that can be deemed socializing and some of the action that does go on is not conducive to healthy relationships.  Another part of socialization is interacting with neighbors and others in the community.  How does high school teach socialization anyway?